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The
Can Spam Act of 2003 (Controlling Assault of Non-Solicited
Pornography and Marketing Act) was greeted and criticized
and received many unexpected reactions.
People
who use spam as a marketing technique were relieved that
the law seemed to legitimize their practices. The Can
Spam Act gave harsh penalties, including fines and imprisonment,
to those who engage in illicit practices, such as disguising
pornography under a deceptive subject line, harvesting
the net for personal information, spoofing others' e-mails
and turning other computers into spam zombies.
How
the Can Spam Act affects your business depends on your
side of the spam issue. Many business owners, who, even
with the best spam filters, often receive up to a 100
or more spam e-mails per day, were disappointed with the
Can Spam Act regarding its leniency towards businesses
who use spam as a marketing technique.
Those
who feel that they are honest in their use of marketing
and do not target people who do not want their e-mails
felt that the law gave those who invade privacy an unfair
advantage in business. Many of these business owners would
like to see the law reformed and improved and further
legislation that would ban all spam completely.
The
Can Spam Act was a pleasant surprise to many prominent
spammers who sent unsolicited mass e-mailings but do not
engage in illicit activities. Many believed that the State
of California would ban spam altogether and the relative
leniency of the federal law was a surprise or a shock.
Those
who send unsolicited e-mails are not allowed to use deceptive
headers or subject lines. They are supposed to provide
every recipient with the opportunity to refuse more e-mail,
and the spammer must stop sending e-mail to that address
within 8 business days.
Aside
from this, there are no further restrictions on sending
unsolicited e-mails, but one is prohibited from selling
e-mail addresses of those who do not want advertising.
This might seem to nip spam in the bud, but in reality,
the law allows plenty of loopholes for spammers.
Many
question whether or no the web can really be regulated
by official bodies. Many people who are ardent about reporting
spam when they first receive it eventually tire out and
stop reporting abuses.
There
is such a high volume of spam, that federal bodies have
difficulty dealing with it all, and focus on the most
serious cases. This might be why the Can Spam Act only
addressed these cases, and left legal business owners
alone.
If
you are tired of receiving spam at your business and feel
that too much manpower and time is wasted on sorting out
hundreds of spam e-mails a day, then that Can Spam Act
has not affected your business very much, except that
illicit practices are not punishable. Y
ou
might want to invest in Whitelisting programs that will
ensure that you only receive e-mail from certain senders.
However, if you uses spam as a marketing technique, the
Can Spam Act provides few or no penalties, provided that
you play by its rules.
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