by Janet Attard

You’ve no doubt heard about the CAN-SPAM law. But did you know the law was updated this year? And that the updated law has some significant implications for some emailers – particularly those mailing affiliate offers?

The four new regulations, which go into effect this month (June, 2008), are causing some email senders – including some who had previously been CAN-SPAM compliant - some consternation.

"The new rules are an effort to tighten up CAN-SPAM - both to clarify for legitimate email senders certain aspects of the law, and to tighten the law to make the gray areas clearer," said attorney Anne P. Mitchell, CEO of the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy (ISIPP), an Internet public policy institute which also offers the popular SuretyMail email senders accreditation program.

"Unfortunately,” Mitchell added, rather than making them clearer to those who most needed the clarification - the email senders - it has just made some things muddier. In particular, the new rules regarding opt-outs and the designated sender - all of which apply to everybody - are causing a lot of headaches. People just don't understand these critical new laws governing the sending of their email."

Of the new rules, the one that’s the most confusing is number 4. It says that for any email that contains the advertisements of someone other than the sender, the entity that the email is "From" must also have their own advertisement in the email, otherwise each and every entity advertised in the email becomes responsible for processing opt-out requests.

To help email senders understand what they need to do (and do quickly, as the new rules go into effect this month) the Institute has put up a page on their website explaining the new rules and how to comply with CAN-SPAM.

But they have also gone a step further.

"We are offering a free CAN-SPAM compliance review to any business on the Internet," announced Mitchell. "It doesn't matter if they are our customers or someone else's customers; or if they are an enormous email service provider or a small mom and pop online business. They can come to our site and get the free CAN-SPAM compliance review. We know that CAN-SPAM is confusing, and we see it as our job to demystify the rules and to help senders to do the right thing."

Email senders can find the rules for CAN-SPAM compliance at http:// www.isipp.com/can-spam.php.

Businesses can sign up for their free CAN-SPAM compliance review at http://www.isipp.com/can-spam-review.php.

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