Email Harvesting

[bbirney]

So, my boss wants me to implement an email harvester on our website. Although I personally find this practice morally repugnant in the extreme, she is my boss, and it's my responsibility to do my job well... Kind of an annoying situation to be in. :mad:

My question: is email harvesting actually legal, provided that you give your spamees the option to opt-out of future emails? I'd love to just go to our company's lawyers on this one, but they cost a lot of money... anyone out there know an answer to this one?

Ben

[fevertje]

About it being legal, I'm not sure.

What I do know, is that in many european countries for instance, there is a legal discussion going on whether spam should work via a opt-in or opt-out system.

But I think the legal matter is not the most important issue. What is more important I believe is whether spam is good or bad for your company's image/public relations. It is a plausible statement when you say that some (possible) customers can get cross with a company when they receive unsollicited mail. And decide to not do business with that company again.

[kevin]

Sending spam is regulated by federal and state law so you have to get educated before sending bulk emails. Just collecting email addresses is not illegal, how you use them could be. Best to put some type of notice on the website somwhere notifying visitors what types of information is being collected and how it might be used.

[bbirney]

Yeah, we already have a spammage provider - supposedly it's one of the more legit companies, and we do the whole opt-out thing.

I think the strongest argument against it is going to end up being the lack of support for the HTML_FROM header in modern browsers.

[SPAM ACT]

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask emailers to stop spamming them.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation's consumer protection agency, is authorized to enforce the CAN-SPAM Act. CAN-SPAM also gives the Department of Justice (DOJ) the authority to enforce its criminal sanctions. Other federal and state agencies can enforce the law against organizations under their jurisdiction, and companies that provide Internet access may sue violators, as well.

[darksidepuffin]

Spam Act:

Although your information is quite valid and relevant, this thread is extremely old. Please do not revive old threads that have likely been disregarded by their original posters.


DemonicPuffin
Moderator