Hugo’s blog

I discovered the CAN-SPAM act today. How? Well, I received a spam, I was curious to see what they were trying to sell me, and I discovered a CAN-SPAM logo proudly displayed on the Web site, indicating full compliance:

I actually was not familiar with CAN-SPAM, and Wikipedia explained to me the CAN-SPAM act of 2003:

CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (15 U.S.C. 7701, et seq., Public Law No. 108-187, was S.877 of the 108th Congress), signed into law by President Bush on December 16, 2003, establishes the United States’ first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail and requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions.

It goes on to describe the requirements for unsolicited emails:

The bill permits e-mail marketers to send unsolicited commercial e-mail as long as it contains all of:

• an opt-out mechanism;
• a valid subject line and header (routing) information;
• the legitimate physical address of the mailer; and
• a label if the content is adult.

So let’s have a look at the email I received:

• an opt-out mechanism: no
• a valid subject line: no, pouch more chicago
• header (routing) information: no; received from athedsl-124852.home.otenet.gr, and from Norris with a forged address in my own domain
• the legitimate physical address of the mailer: no
• a label if the content is adult: not applicable

So that’s the CAN-SPAM act for you. Interestingly, it looks like the US congress is about to look into this issue again. I guess that they can only be more successful.