Cleaning up the Industry - CAN SPAM Compliancy

For traffic exchanges to be taken seriously outside of the industry, many exchanges need to clean up their act. One area we are failing in, is Email Reputation.

Disclaimer: When I say WE, I mean as an industry, my email reputation is clean. I was accredited by ISIPP / SuretyMail and have applied to be SenderScore Certified by Return Path the leader in Email Accreditation. I include this disclaimer so those investigating me won't be confused and think that my services aren't up to par ;-)

There are so many things about Email Reputation that is lacking in our industry, but the biggest one I see is simply following the law! In May 2008 the act was updated to include these four changes:

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

I've underlined the biggest problem the majority of traffic exchanges have. That is putting a section stating to get off the list to login to your account and delete your account. This is not even close to being compliant. See that bold underlined text? They shouldn't have to provide more than their email, and take more than one visit to be removed!

The good news is, there's a pretty easy work around for most exchanges. If you make the link to the delete page have the username and password passed as variables, it'll work just fine. The user isn't entering anything in, and it's a one click wonder. The only problem is some members will click the link accidentally, so make sure you label it appropriately

TCNTE: http://www.yoursite.com/delete.php?username=##USERNAME##&password=##PASSWORD##
LJ: http://www.yoursite.com/delete.php?email=##EMAILE##&password=##PASSWORD##

If you can't or don't want to do it this way, just do something to make your emails CAN SPAM compliant. If it's way over your head, use Aweber to email your members! It doesn't matter the technical way it's done, all that matters is that you follow the rules.

So non exchange owners, go read your emails you get from your favorite exchanges and see if it's complaint. If not, it's time to put some pressure on these guys and get the industry cleaned up. It's the only way to ensure we don't get a bad reputation!

Out of the last 20 emails I received from traffic exchanges*:

• 8 Tell you to login to delete, and give a link
• 5 Didn't Even Mention How To Unsubscribe
• 6 Says to unsubscribe to delete your account, but doesn't tell you how or where
• 19 Didn't give you your username/password
• 15 Didn't include a valid postal address
• 1 Included a valid opt out link
• 4 Included a valid postal address
• 1 Gave a username and password, but no links at all to anywhere??

* Should be noted that none of these include SuperSurf exchanges, simply because I have those emails go to a special folder so I can spy - I mean coordinate with their mailings.