FTC Issues Final CAN-SPAM Regulations

On May 12, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued the final rule in its CAN-SPAM proceeding. The Commission began working on finalizing these regulations in 2005. The final rule issued by the FTC supports many of the positions taken by NAA in this proceeding.

The final rule clarifies the definition of sender when an e-mail contains commercial messages from several marketers. The regulations state the “designated sender” must be identified in the “from” line as the “sole sender of the message.” Only this main sender will be required to honor opt-out requests. The final rule also clarifies that “forward-to-a-friend” e-mails are not considered to be commercial messages under CAN-SPAM, as long as the Web site offered a Web-based mechanism for sending the e-mail and did not “exhort” or pay visitors to forward the e-mail to others.

The FTC had also been considering reducing the amount of time given to marketers to honor opt-out requests. However, the Commission decided not to change the timeframe, keeping the grace period at 10 business days.

First Published:
May 28, 2008