CAN-SPAM Act Tutorial
On this page, you will find the basic requirements that you should meet to ensure your advertisement email messages are not considered spam.
Note also that those are the basics you should stick to in order to avoid your emails being treated as spam by the SiteGround’s in-house spam prevention systems.
- Do not use false or misleading identity information. You should not use false or misleading information regarding who is sending the email message or where it is originating from. Your emails “From”, “To”, “Reply-To” and various routing information – including the originating domain name and the email address – must be accurate and identify the person or the company that sends the message.
- Do not use deceptive Subject for your email messages. You should make sure that the subject line accurately reflects the content of your email message.
- Identify the message as an advertisement. There are no strong restrictions on how to identify a message as an ad. On the contrary, the law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this. Still, you need to disclose clearly and conspicuously that a message is an advertisement.
- Tell recipients where you’re located. The email message should include your physical postal address. This can be your current street address, a post office box you’ve registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations.
- Clearly, include an option to opt out of receiving future emails from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting an email from you in the future. The notice should be clearly recognizable and easy for a person to read and understand. You may create more than one option to opt out of certain message types only but you should in all cases include the possibility to easily opt out of receiving all messages whatsoever.
- Honor opt-out requests promptly. It is of utter importance that you honor opt-out requests in a timely manner. Your opt-out mechanism should be able to handle requests at least 30 days after your message was sent and recipients opt-out requests should be honored within 10 business days. You cannot request a fee or request the recipient to provide any personal information besides the email address. Once a person has opted out you are not allowed to transfer or sell the email address even in the form of a mailing list.
- Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. Even if you hire another company to manage your email marketing, you are still legally responsible for email messages that originate from email or domain registered under your name. Note that both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message will be held legally responsible.