Spam in Ireland now an indictable offense

The Irish Data Protection commissioner signed into law on 9 Dec 08, changes to SI526 that now makes sending unsolicited communications an indictable offence. Previously the maximum fine was EUR3,000. The minimum is now EUR5,000 and can reach EUR250,000 or ten-percent of turnover. Private individuals can be fined upto EUR50,000. The onus of establishing that the subscriber consented will lie on the defendant.

In a press release issued on 22 Dec 08, Billy Hawkes of the Data protection office, said: "I want, in particular, to send a message to all involved in business to familiarise themselves with the law which applies to unsolicited communications for direct marketing purposes. Increasingly, in this period of economic downturn, my Office is receiving complaints about businesses making unsolicited contact with their past customers for marketing purposes. In many cases, such contact is unlawful and, if carried out by telephone, text message or email it may be a criminal offence. Ignorance of the law is not an acceptable excuse for non-compliance and I will have no hesitation in applying the full force of the new regulations to offenders."

Users of reputable email marketing software like Spinnakerpro are better protected because of the controls involved for opting in and opting out. Importantly, after a subscriber has opted-out, they receive a message confirming this and the software can no longer send to that subscriber. The problem with non-automated systems is that there is a danger a company could re-contact someone who has opted-out and thus fall foul of the regulations.

Link to this post: http://urlx.ie/71343/

FTC Approves New Rule Provision Under The CAN-SPAM Act

The FTC has approved new provisions for the CAN-SPAM act. You can read all about it here and download the actual document here. Below is a repeat of the main thrust of the changes from the FTC site. But first a comment on two items in the text. The first is the notion of who is the Sender when an email contains multiple messages from different brands. To cut a long story short it's the from address that is the Sender . So if brand A,B,C are in the message and it's from Brand A then Brand A is the Sender. The second is what is meant by the term Person. Interestingly, a non profit group tried to change this term so that effectively non profits would not be subject to CAN SPAM. Very pleased to see they failed in that regard.

Here's the FTC excerpt:
(1) an e-mail recipient cannot be required to pay a fee, provide information other than his or her e-mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any steps other than sending a reply e-mail message or visiting a single Internet Web page to opt out of receiving future e-mail from a sender;

(2) the definition of “sender” was modified to make it easier to determine which of multiple parties advertising in a single e-mail message is responsible for complying with the Act’s opt-out requirements;

(3) a “sender” of commercial e-mail can include an accurately-registered post office box or private mailbox established under United States Postal Service regulations to satisfy the Act’s requirement that a commercial e-mail display a “valid physical postal address”;

(4) a definition of the term “person” was added to clarify that CAN-SPAM’s obligations are not limited to natural persons.

EC Directive 2003/58/EC and UK SI3429

On 1 Jan 2007 the UK passed into the law the EC Directive 2003/58/EC concerning company disclosure requirements. The changes are detailed in SI 3429 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2006/20063429.htm

In general, companies must show their legal business name, registered business address and registered company number on their website. It does not have to be on every page. It should also be on electronic order forms.

It is very clear that the primary change is for a website and electronic documents. It has not been specifically stated that it should be on customer email communications but most people are taking a "one size fits all" approach and putting the disclosure information on the email footer.

If you are a brand covering several countries using one newsletter you may need to use dynamic content to display footers based on data in the contact record. Click here if you need help on how to use dynamic content.

Several sites are making various claims about which action you should take. The recommendation above seems fine and is good CAN-SPAM practice anyway but it is best to take legal advice from a licensed practitioner for the country concerned. For that reason, the only link shown here is the actual legal document signed into law by the UK parliament effective 1 Jan 2007.