If I send out a survey to an email list that I compiled of 1,000 attorneys is that illegal spam?
Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at
7:14 am
I own a company which designs software and one of our products is targeted at the legal profession. I have an email list of 1,000 attorneys that I compiled from the state bar association’s records, and I would like to send out a survey to these attorneys so that I can get an idea of the viability of my product. Would this be illegal? Would this be Spam? How could I avoid breaking the law and avoid having my email filtered through spam?
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
There are ways to legally send Unsolicited Commercial Emails (UCE) or what is commonly called "spam." You need to understand and follow the restrictions set forth in the Can-Spam Act, especially as you will be mailng to lawyers. Getting through spam blockers may be difficult, but there are no legal methods you can use to get past them. You have to take your chances.
From the Federal Trade Commission web site, see information below. go to the link provided for more complete information
The CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm
Do you use email in your business? The CAN-SPAM Act, a law that sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have you stop emailing them, and spells out tough penalties for violations.
Despite its name, the CAN-SPAM Act doesn’t apply just to bulk email. It covers all commercial messages, which the law defines as “any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service,” including email that promotes content on commercial websites. The law makes no exception for business-to-business email. That means all email – for example, a message to former customers announcing a new product line – must comply with the law.
Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000, so non-compliance can be costly. But following the law isn’t complicated. Here’s a rundown of CAN-SPAM’s main requirements:
Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.
Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement.
Tell recipients where you’re located. Your message must include your valid physical postal address. This can be your current street address, a post office box you’ve registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations.
Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Craft the notice in a way that’s easy for an ordinary person to recognize, read, and understand. Creative use of type size, color, and location can improve clarity. Give a return email address or another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice to you. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you. Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests.
Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request. Once people have told you they don’t want to receive more messages from you, you can’t sell or transfer their email addresses, even in the form of a mailing list. The only exception is that you may transfer the addresses to a company you’ve hired to help you comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.
Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. The law makes clear that even if you hire another company to handle your email marketing, you can’t contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law. Both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message may be held legally responsible.
It would be spam if they didn’t give their email addresses or ask to be surveyed. The best possible way is to first send emails to all of them asking if you can send them a survey then edit your list to fit the Yes’s
Depends on how you Obtained the List. Did you buy it? or phisher it out? or wasit honestly obtained. The chances are that if you do decide to email it too them, it will be filtered out because they will see it as junk mail unless they are personaly aware that they signed up for such email
Follow me on twitter
twitter.com/socialgoating