Internet Policy Institute Offers Free CAN SPAM Compliance Review and Explains New CAN-SPAM Rules

With four new enhancements to the CAN-SPAM law taking effect this month, Internet businesses and email senders are in a tizzy to understand how to comply with the new rules. The Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy is offering a free CAN-SPAM review, as well as resources explaining how to comply with the new rules.

Boulder, CO & Santa Clara, CA (PRWEB) June 11, 2008 -- The Internet policy institute ISIPP is offering free CAN-SPAM compliance reviews to all email senders, with no strings attached.

With the advent of the four new CAN-SPAM rules which go into effect this month, email senders - including those who had previously been CAN-SPAM compliant - are finding that they are either out of compliance, or that they simply don't know how to comply any more.

The new rules are an effort to tighten up CAN-SPAM - both to clarify for legitimate email senders certain aspects of the law, and to tighten the law to make the gray areas clearer

Unfortunately, rather than making them clearer to those who most needed the clarification - the email senders - it has just made some things muddier. In particular, the new rules regarding opt-outs and the designated sender - all of which apply to everybody - are causing a lot of headaches. People just don't understand these critical new laws governing the sending of their email

The single-click opt out requirement is pretty straight forward, but it means that a lot of email senders are now scrambling to retool their opt-out system

But, it's the one about who is advertised in the email as compared to whose email address the email is

that is really causing all the headaches. Heck, I helped author part of CAN-SPAM and it still took me three read-throughs to really determine what exactly a sender has to do to comply with that section; how can they expect the average email sender to understand it?

We are offering a free CAN-SPAM compliance review to any business on the Internet

It doesn't matter if they are our customers or someone else's customers; or if they are an enormous email service provider or a small mom and pop online business. They can come to our site and get the free CAN-SPAM compliance review. We know that CAN-SPAM is confusing, and we see it as our job to demystify the rules and to help senders to do the right thing.

"Unfortunately, rather than making them clearer to those who most needed the clarification - the email senders - it has just made some things muddier. In particular, the new rules regarding opt-outs and the designated sender - all of which apply to everybody - are causing a lot of headaches. People just don't understand these critical new laws governing the sending of their email," added Mitchell.

The new CAN-SPAM rules boil down to this, according to Mitchell:

1. CAN-SPAM applies to all commercial email senders.

2. It is acceptable to use a post office box or private mailbox (PMB) as the postal address that is required in every mailing by CAN-SPAM.

3. All opt-out requests must be able to be accomplished by a single action - a single click on a link in an email, or on a web page.

4. For any email that contains the advertisements of someone other than the sender, the entity that the email is "From" must also have their own advertisement in the email, otherwise each and every entity advertised in the email becomes responsible for processing opt-out requests.

It is the last two requirements, says Mitchell, that are causing email senders the most heartburn.

"The single-click opt out requirement is pretty straight forward, but it means that a lot of email senders are now scrambling to retool their opt-out system," explained Mitchell. "But, it's the one about who is advertised in the email as compared to whose email address the email is "from" that is really causing all the headaches. Heck, I helped author part of CAN-SPAM and it still took me three read-throughs to really determine what exactly a sender has to do to comply with that section; how can they expect the average email sender to understand it?" she added.

To help email senders understand what they need to do (and do quickly, as the new rules go into effect this month) the Institute has put up a page on their website explaining the new rules and how to comply with CAN-SPAM.

But they have also gone a step further.

"We are offering a free CAN-SPAM compliance review to any business on the Internet," announced Mitchell. "It doesn't matter if they are our customers or someone else's customers; or if they are an enormous email service provider or a small mom and pop online business. They can come to our site and get the free CAN-SPAM compliance review. We know that CAN-SPAM is confusing, and we see it as our job to demystify the rules and to help senders to do the right thing."

Email senders can find the rules for CAN-SPAM compliance at http://www.isipp.com/can-spam.php

Businesses can sign up for their free CAN-SPAM compliance review at http://www.isipp.com/can-spam-review.php

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