CAN-SPAM brief...
I hope the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 eventually reduces the number of unsolicited messages so we can all enjoy the benefits of email without the nuisance of spam. In the meantime, I thought you might be interested in a brief recap of the act's provisions to make sure your business doesn't get caught in its "traps for the unwary."

Key Provisions of the New Law
Unlike the onerous CA statute that was scheduled to take effect Jan 1, the federal legislation, which generally preempts state anti-spam laws, allows the transmission of unsolicited email as long as the new rules are followed. Some of these rules, which took effect 1/1/04, include:

• Unsolicited messages whose "primary purpose" is advertising or promotion must be "clearly and conspicuously" labeled as such, must include a valid postal address, and must include an email or Internet-based mechanism for opting out of future messages. Within 12 months the FTC will establish criteria for defining a message's primary purpose. This determination will be a key factor for businesses who send email newsletters.
• Opt-out requests must be honored within 10 days, and all employees of the sending organization may be subject to the opt-out request, even if they are sending just a single email.
• The act does not create a broad exemption for emails sent to recipients with whom the sender has a preexisting business relationship. However, it does recognize a narrow category of "transactional or relationship messages" that are exempt from many of the new rules.
• Recipients of spam will not be able to sue the sender. Instead, the law will be enforced by FTC proceedings, criminal prosecutions, and state attorney general actions. However, the law does allow Internet Service Providers to sue violators who adversely affect their business.
• Certain kinds of practices defined as "aggravated violations" will be subject to higher penalties. These include sending unsolicited email to a list that was obtained by questionable means such as random address generation, from a website contrary to the site's posted privacy policy, or from a computer that was accessed without authorization.
• Some anti-fraud provisions of the law carry criminal penalties, and they may apply to a single message and/or transactional or relationship messages. These provisions apply to fraudulent practices such as obscuring the origin of the message by misleading headers, labeling messages with false or misleading subject lines, and other types of information falsification.

NOTE: I am not an attorney and am not providing legal advice. This recap is only meant to give you a brief look at the law's requirements. The full legislation is available here: http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html Consult your attorney for advice about your particular email practices.