Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act
The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act covers unsolicited commercial email messages known as spam.
- passed in 2003
- spam is unsolicited electronic junk mail that a user may receive
- has both civil and criminal provisions
- requires commercial email senders to meet certain requirements
- Commercial messages are messages with content that advertises or promotes a product or service
- forbids sending sexually explicit email unless it has a label or marking that identifies it as explicit
Requirements
- Do not use false or misleading header information
- Do not use deceptive subject lines
- Identify the email message as a commercial advertisement
- Include a valid physical postal address
- Inform message recipients how to opt-out of future email messages
- Promptly process opt-out requests
- Monitor the actions of third parties that advertise on the sender’s behalf
Civil Provisions
- FTC enforces the civil provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act
- Violations of the Act are enforced by the FTC in the same way that it enforces unfair or deceptive trade practices
- FTC also has promulgated rules for businesses to follow
Criminal Provisions
- includes penalties for:
- Accessing another person’s computer without permission to send spam
- Using false information to register for multiple email accounts or domain names
- Relaying or retransmitting spam messages through a computer to mislead others about the origin of the email
- Harvesting email addresses or generating them through a dictionary attack
- Taking advantage of open relays or open proxies without permission to send spam
- U.S. Department of Justice enforces the criminal provisions
- Criminal penalties include fines or imprisonment of up to 5 years