The Legal Status of Feedback Loops

An interesting question comes in today: “Is it required by law to unsubscribe feedback loop complaints received by senders?” And I call it interesting because it’s a question dealing with legal status, and not best practices.
So, today’s post gets a caveat: I am not an attorney licensed to practice in any jurisdiction [...]

Handling Unsubscribe Requests

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When someone wants off of your list what do you do? Obviously, the answer to that question is “remove them.” Just as important of a consideration is “How do you go about doing that?”
Commercial email is an animal all to itself. If you have a falling out with your best [...]

When is transactional mail not transactional anymore?

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An interesting question came across my desk this morning. Here’s the request from someone we’ll call “Joe”:
I need some help understanding CAN-SPAM requirements. I represent a membership organization. From time to time, we send marketing message to our members and, of course, some of the unsubscribe from those messages. Now we are getting [...]

Use Private Domain Registration and Go to Jail?

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As reported on Spamsuite, the 9th Circuit opinion in USA v. Kilbride, (9th Cir., 2009) has been released. This is primarily an obscenity case against the defendants for sending pornographic spam email. But, it also includes a challenge to 18 U.S.C. § 1037 on vagueness grounds.
18 U.S.C. § 1037 is the part of [...]

How Harmful is Jaynes?

In the long run, not very, and I anticipate that it will even be somewhat useful. As John Levine points out, the only real application of the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision as far as the Virginia statute at issue is to Jaynes himself.
I’m not going to belabor the First Amendment section. It’s been [...]

You have NO Right to Privacy on the Internet

Doe et al. v. Ciolli, et al. is better known as the “AutoAdmit case”. This is a case brought by two women (Doe I and Doe II) against a group of people who allegedly engaged in libel against them on a website (AutoAdmit). If the allegations are true then the responsible defendants are [...]

What’s up with Jeremy Jaynes?

Several places I’ve frequented lately have been up-at-arms over the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision to grant a limited re-hearing on a question of standing in the Jeremy Jaynes case. So, here’s the lowdown:
Jaynes (a/k/a Gavin Stubberfield) was convicted in 2005 of certain criminal offenses defined in Virginia’s anti-spam statute. He claimed a few [...]

Let’s Look Like We’re Doing Something!

The Illinois General Assembly is working on HB4198. It’s an update to their anti-harassment law to cover:
harassment through electronic communications including electronically communicating directly with another person with the intent to knowingly intimidate or cause emotional distress to another person or with the intent that physical harm would result from the communication
I wonder if [...]

Israel Gets A Spam Law (With Teeth)

There are news reports of tough anti-spam legislation coming out of Israel:
The bills passed yesterday allows persons to sue advertisers for compensation without the burden of proof of harm, for any spam sent without prior consent in writing. Violation of the law is now a criminal offense carrying a fine of up to NIS 202,000, [...]

US Bill Could See Crackdown on Spam, or Not

So, Colorado has passed a new anti-spam bill. If their governor signs it, we Could See a Crackdown on Spam (says the email from Google Alerts). Or will we?
What this bill does is replace Colorado’s existing anti-spam law with a new one that makes it a state criminal offense to violate the federal [...]