CAN SPAM says I can!

the word spam with a checkmark next to it.

Saw a new disclaimer on mail sent to an address harvested off our website today:

disclaimer: This is an advertisement and a promotional mail-in adherence to the guidelines of CAN-SPAM act 2003. We have clearly mentioned the source id of this mail, also clearly mentioned the subject line, and they are in no way misleading in any form. We have found your email address through our own efforts on the web search and not through any other way. If you find this email unsolicited, please reply with “REMOVE” in the subject line and we will take care that you don’t receive any further promotional mail.

Of course, the “we will take care you don’t receive more” is a blatant lie. They always send more. I mean, I guess they adhere to the absolute letter of the law, they never send to the same address. They just harvest new ones.

Then there is the ‘there is nothing deceptive here!’ comment. If that’s true, why is the from address Kimcarter but the message signed by a Matt somebody, Marketing Director? Of course, just 2 weeks ago ago Matt was their Senior Frontend Developer and used the name Glenn Taylor. Before that it was Glenn Taylor, Jim Whitehead, Andrea Sharp, Ryan Heilman.

The Ryan Heilman message is fun. Apparently, Matt’s scraping software had a bit of a burp and was notifying me of problems with my website williamsnickl.com. Yeah. OK. Ryan, er… Matt, er… spammer. Let’s go with spammer.

It did make me smile today when I noticed this particular group of spammers have had to change their sending domain again. Who is going to tell them that having their actual website in the body of the message means changing the sending domain is useless? (not it!)

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TWSD: breaking the law

I tell my clients that they should comply with CAN SPAM (physical postal address and unsubscribe option) even if the mail they are sending is technically exempt. The bar for legality is so low, there is no reason not to.
Sure, there is a lot of spam out there that does not comply with CAN SPAM. Everything you see from botnets and proxies is in violation, although many of those mails do actually meet the postal address and unsubscribe requirements.
One of my spams recently caught my eye today with their disclaimer on the bottom: “This email message is CAN SPAM ACT of 2003 Compliant.” The really funny bit is that it does not actually comply with the law. Even better, the address it was sent to is not published anywhere, so the company could also be nailed for a dictionary attack and face enhanced penalties.
It reminds me of the old spams that claimed they complied with S.1618.

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It’s not marketing, it’s spam

There are times when I hesitate to call what marketers do “spam.” I can use the euphemisms with the best of ’em. “Cold emails” “Targeted Marketing” “B2B marketing.”

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Unsubscribe means unsubscribe

But, unfortunately, some senders don’t actually think unsubscribe means stop sending mail.
Today, for instance, the nice folks at The Container Store sent me an email with an “important update to my POP! account”

Yes, that’s an address I gave them. But I don’t have any record of setting up an account. I was on their mailing list for all of 4 emails back in November 2016 before unsubscribing. But, they’ve decided they can email me despite my unsubscribe request.
They’ve cloaked this as an “Important Account Update” about some account I don’t have. In fact, when I go to their website and try and see what this oh so important account is about they tell me:


I understand legitimate account notifications might be an acceptable excuse to send mail even after the recipient opted out. This, however, was done extremely poorly. There is no record of the account that they are sending me information about. Neither the company nor I have any record of this account of mine.
At a minimum the emails should have only be sent to the folks that actually had an account. But, they weren’t.
I also have some issues with a company requiring recipients to accept email in order to continue using reward points. As a recipient, if I wanted what they were offering I might go ahead and continue receiving emails. But, I might not. It would all depend on how aggressive their email program is and how good the rewards are. As a deliverability consultant, this strikes me as a great way to create a mailing list full of unengaged users. Unengaged users lead to spam foldering and eventual failure of an email marketing program.
Whatever some executives think, and having been in this industry for a decade and I half I’m sure this is coming from the top down, this is not a good way to build an email program. You really can’t force folks to accept your email. ISPs are too protective of their users to make that a viable strategy.

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