CAN-SPAM Act's 'primary purpose' definition creates gray area.
The new federal "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003"--more commonly referred to as the "CAN-SPAM Act"--regulates commercial E-mail messages. As of Jan. 1, 2004, any such messages must contain: (1) a postal address for the sender; (2) clear disclosure that the message is an...

Representing the direct response client: ERA set to host two comprehensive legal seminars in 2004--April 16 in New York, NY and April 28 in Santa Monica, CA.
In April, ERA will host two in-depth seminars on the regulatory, business law and ethical questions that plague today's direct response marketers. As the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continues its scrutiny of the direct response industry, it becomes increasingly more important for marketers to rely on legal expertise to...

When spammers hijack your email account.
Byline: Pavan Duggal My company's domain name was hijacked on October or November 2005 and is being used for spamming. Everyday I receive hundreds of email informing me of failed delivery. I guess this must be the tip of the iceberg and many hundreds probably...

Microsoft, Pfizer file suits against pill spammers.
NEW YORK -- Microsoft and Pfizer, a leading pharmaceuticals manufacturer, filed separate lawsuits in early February against companies advertising generic Viagra through junk E-mail. Microsoft filed suits in Washington State claiming that online companies CanadianPharmacy and Pharmacy Direct violated federal anti-spam regulations, outlined in the Federal Trade...

California champions privacy again; is federal help on the way?
The State of California continues to champion privacy with the passage of three new laws that directly affect marketers who promote their products and services to California residents: (1) the Internet Privacy Requirements Law; (2) the Personal Identification Information Law; and (3) the Financial Information Privacy Act. Together, they...

Cleaning up e-mail: an end to spam?
THANKS TO THE ingenious CAN-SPAM Act passed by Congress last year, junk e-mail in the United States has been drastically reduced, rendering many inboxes completely spam free. Just kidding. Despite the new law, spam continues to increase, and recent studies by makers of anti-spam software found that...

Spamming voters: political junk ease.
WHAT'S WORSE THAN spam? Political spam, the dirtiest, vilest form of spam. Campaign '04 is its coming-out party. One spam-blocking firm, MailFrontier, predicts 1.25 billion unsolicited political e-malls will be sent to prospective voters by November. The group estimates that about 1 percent of all spam is...

Escalating spam wars: districts need multiple tools to fight the rising tide of junk.
Imagine that every time you went to grab an item at the supermarket, someone ran up to you and forced you to consider what they were selling. Chances are you'd be shopping at a different supermarket soon. Well, that's the state of e-mail these days. Half the messages received...

Balance sheet.
Protected Shirt A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit unanimously rules that a Virginia middle school had no good reason to ban an "NRA Sports Shooting Camp" T-shirt just because it had a gun on it. The school district could not show...

New FTC rule gives E-mail recipients fair warning.
It's given that E-mail marketing has made an enormous impact on the direct response marketing industry. Not only has it enabled direct marketers to reach more consumers throughout the United States, it's opened the doors to some international markets that, in the past, would have been difficult to penetrate....