One Click, Two Click, Red Click, Blue Click

I’ve seen a lot of discussion and arguments over the CAN SPAM rule about whether or not an unsubscribe needs to be a One-Click unsubscribe. It’s gotten so common, I have a stock email I use as a template when wading into such discussions. It’s probably useful for a lot of other people, too, so I thought I’d share.
The regs say:

§ 316.5 Prohibition on charging a fee or imposing other requirements on recipients who wish to opt out.
Neither a sender nor any person acting on behalf of a sender may require that any recipient pay any fee, provide any information other than the recipient’s electronic mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any other steps except sending a reply electronic mail message or visiting a single Internet Web page, in order to:
(a) Use a return electronic mail address or other Internet-based mechanism, required by 15 U.S.C. 7704(a)(3), to submit a request not to receive future commercial electronic mail messages from a sender; or
(b) Have such a request honored as required by 15 U.S.C. 7704(a)(3)(B) and (a)(4).

If you shorten that really complex sentence and take out the modifiers / pointers to statutes it says: “No one may require that a recipient take any steps except visiting a single internet web page in order to submit a request to not receive future commercial emails from a sender.”
Under this rule, the sender may ask for the recipient’s electronic email address and their opt-out preferences.
I believe that a “2-click” process, where the first click takes the user to a webpage and the second click confirms the email address and the unsubscribe option, is legal under the FTC rulemaking. What the FTC really wanted to stop was requiring things like passwords for an opt-out, and to counter some of the spammers who were requiring people pay to be unsubscribed.
I do not like green eggs and spam.
I do not like them, Sam I am. (With apologies to Dr. Seuss)

Filters and windmills
More than just getting past the filters

Related Posts

CA court requires sender identification on emails

Venkat analyzes the appeals court decision in Balsam v. Trancos, Inc.. In this case the appeals court decided that emails have to identify some actual person or entity they are sent by or from. Emails that do not identify the sender are in violation of the California anti-spam statute.
Venkat talks about all the reasons he thinks this is a problematic ruling, and the CA courts and anti-spam activists certainly have their share of bad rulings. I’m less convinced. The crux of the case seems to be that the advertiser used a number of random domains to hide the responsible party for an email. Rotating domains is a very, very common spammer tactic that is specifically a way to avoid domain based filters.
I understand Venkat’s concern but as someone who gets a lot of these spams I think the court is certainly ruling within the spirit of the CA statute. These mailers are using random domains to avoid filters and mislead recipients as to the source of the mail. Even if the domains are legitimately owned by the advertiser, they are usually hidden behind privacy protection and give the recipient no real information about who is sending the mail.
Another interesting point is the court speaking out against privacy registration. Personally, I don’t think any business should ever hide their domain registration behind privacy protection. If you’re a business, then you should stand up and give real contact information. I know it can be scary, particularly for people working out of their home, but if you’re a real business, you need to have an address registered with your state. Furthermore, if you’re a business sending email, all that email must contain a physical postal address. Your address already needs to be public, and including that in whois records isn’t actually going to change anything.

Read More

CAN SPAM compliance information in images

A fellow delivery specialist sent me a question this morning.

Read More

Expectations

One of the themes I harp on with clients is setting recipient expectations. Senders that give recipients the information they need to make an informed subscription decision have much higher inbox and response rates than senders that try to mislead their recipients.
Despite the evidence that correctly setting expectations results in better delivery and higher ROI on lists some senders go out of their way to hide terms from recipients. I’ve heard many of those types of comments over the years.

Read More