We all get too much spam these days, and most of us are getting savvier about reducing spam in our Inbox.
In January of 2004, the CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) was enacted to set some rules for commercial emailers.
Here’s some information about the law.
It bans false or misleading header information. Your email's "From," "To," and routing information - including the originating domain name and email address - must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email.
It prohibits deceptive subject lines. The subject line cannot mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.
It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a "menu" of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.
It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender's valid physical postal address. Your message must contain clear and conspicuous notice that the message is an advertisement or solicitation and that the recipient can opt out of receiving more commercial email from you. It also must include your valid physical postal address.
Penalties
Each violation of the above provisions is subject to fines of up to $11,000. Deceptive commercial email also is subject to laws banning false or misleading advertising.
Source: FTC's CAN-SPAM webpage
If you are wondering why you are continuing to get spammed, check out how many people actually purchase from spammers.
Below is the reason why Spam email will continue to increase. If you are tired of spam, like most of us, tell people to stop buying from spammers. We need to remove the business incentive so that they’ll stop the spamming!
28% - Users who reply to Spam email - TopTenReviews.com (2005)
8% - Users who purchased from Spam email - TopTenReviews.com (2005)
Here’s what it costs corporations:
The Spam epidemic is costing U.S. businesses $712 for each employee in lost worker productivity. - Nucleus Research (2007)
Two out of every three email messages received by today's business users are spam. - Nucleus Research (2007)
Users are spending 16 seconds identifying and deleting each spam email, which translates into an annual cost of $70 billion to all U.S. businesses. - Nucleus Research (2007)
At least 90 percent of email reaching corporate servers is spam. - Nucleus Research (2007)
Source: http://www.emailstatcenter.com/?gclid=CNaU5uivwY4CFQHgPAod-RyDwA
