I have thousands of emails along with first name and last name, so personalization needn't be a problem. I'm the webmaster of www.ArticleAnt.com and I'm emailing placement firm individuals asking them to post on my classifieds. The pitch for this campaign is getting the ad posted or notified on various social networks by default and even an instance like this Google Rankings found below http://bit.ly/cCDz75 http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&q=Accounting+employment+palm+valley&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai= http://bit.ly/9d1h2J http://bit.ly/cQj4Kf Supposing I email Law firms in the US (obviously for a free listing) will I run into legal problems. This is again contextual. Can somebody help? I'm based out of the US but I do not want to bring disrepute to my website or my own self. Again, I repeat, the mailings are contextual and they also have unsubscribe link in the bottom of each mail I send out. Please help!
How did you acquire those emails and names? If you had previous business dealings with them and honor unsubscribe requests I believe you should have no problems.
As the poster above says, if you gathered these names from people with whom you had a business relationship, you may mail to them without fear. However, if your list of names was merely gathered over the years from other sources, your mail is considered to be unsolicited commercial email (UCE also known as spam.) It is legal to send UCE if you follow the rules: Email Marketing Laws – The Do’s and Don’ts of Can-Spam Knowledge of Email marketing laws begins with the Can-Spam Act of 2003. In an effort to better inform you on the contents of the Can-Spam Act of 2003, I have written a simple synopsis of the act, sort of a Do’s and Don’ts list. Lawyers are always hesitant to create a Do’s and Don’ts list because sometimes it is not black and white, it is Gray. A good example of “gray†in the current law is the requirement to provide, “clear and conspicuous identification that the message is an advertisement or solicitationâ€. Certainly, preceding your subject with “ADV:†would satisfy this requirement. However, putting a disclaimer in your message would also satisfy the law in an altogether different way, and one which you might rather use. Under the act it is a felony punishable with jail terms, fines and forfeitures: 1. To use proxies or relays to send your mail, 2. To falsify your header (by definition, you are falsifying your headers if you purposely disguise the e-mail’s origin), or 3. If you falsify the registration information when buying domains or setting up e-mail accounts, or when registering for IP addresses. The act goes on to list civil penalties unless you take the following actions to conform to the requirements of the law: 1. Your header information and registration information has to be true and correct. 2. You must have a valid from address, registered with true and correct information. 3. You cannot use a subject line that would be likely to mislead the recipient about the contents of the e-mail. 4. You must have a conspicuous opt-out mechanism which works for 30 days after the mailing is completed. (This can be at your website). 5. You must honor your opt-outs within 10 days of request. 6. Your message must have a conspicuous identification that it is an advertisement. 7. The message must contain a valid physical postal address of the sender. 8. You must not use recipient addresses that were obtained using an address harvester or by means of a dictionary attack. (Triple damages apply.) 9. You cannot use automated means to register for multiple e-mail addresses. 10. Sexually orientated material will require special marks of content. 11. Customers who know their products are being sold in violation of the act are also held to be liable. There is really no way for an individual to sue a spammer under this act, only the State or the Feds, or an ISP that has suffered a loss. The act supersedes State internet laws, but with many exceptions.