CANSPAM did cause a few headaches, but most people (even in the then maligned email publisher/CPA network space) were already doing most, if not all, of what the regulations called for but it is still a good example of how industries should enforce best practices policies themselves before governmental action is taken.

thanks for your comments. From what I heard from numerous sources was that the DMA got involved towards the end of the process and did indeed cause modifications to some of the articles in the act. Correct me if that is not correct please.

Some of the issues of the act were addressed by the current revision.

I follow some direct marketing publications and blogs and the picture that is drawn imo is that CAN-SPAM was in general considered to be something that was needed (the affiliate marketing industry needs something similar as well btw). However, it's original context was developed by outsiders of the industry who had only little practical knowledge about what is happening in the email marketing industry. It should have come from inside the industry itself, but didn't. The only thing that could be done was to get as much as possible "fixed" and adjusted to what was considered best practices in the industry back then.

The changes were not perfect and still created issues for legitimate advertisers while being at the same time too week in some areas, where the Act could have been much stronger.

It caused headaches for a many in the industry who did not consider themselves black-hat.

This is the perception of the things that I got over the past years from numerous comments and mentioning of the CAN-SPAM act.

Again, if this perception is wrong, please let me know.

btw. my point in my post is about the lack of any standards or best practices in affiliate marketing, which does not even have something that resembles an industry association at all today. There are affiliates and other participants in the industry who are abusing the system and cause issues for consumers and for legitimate affiliate marketers.

If the industry cannot distance itself from what is commonly considered bad practice, outsiders will step in and force regulations upon it, which will create more issues for clean marketers than for the bad guys. There are movements that lobby for the creation of an association and establishment of best practices that lawmakers could adapt or reinforce via state or federal law and legislation. Also to create a body that communicates to the outside world on behalf of the industry to educate, lobby and support anything that is relevant to the industry as a whole.

This context is important for the understanding of my post IMO. Just FYI.

Cheers!

Carsten

I think you mis-stated two very important things about CANSPAM in your post…

1. “The DMA was not involved when the act was originally developed.”

Yes, it was as were a number of agencies and merchants. I was working for an email marketing company at the time and we were in Orlando for the DMA’s when the FTC announced the new statute. The DMA was involved and very supportive (as were most legit email marketers) of its passage.

http://www.the-dma.org/cgi/disppressrelease?article=531

2. “As you can see, the FTC was this time much more open to feedback and comments (I assume that one reason for that was the fact that the Act did nothing to reduce spam, but caused an outcry from legitimate advertisers instead).”

CANSPAM was never meant to curtail the amount of spam. It was a way to facilitate and distinguish legitimate email marketers from the spammers so that the federal government could go after the “bad guys” under federal laws rather than the myriad of state laws that were popping up at the time and opening the doors for an amazing amount of tortious suits against legitimate marketers.

The updates are a positive improvement on the law, but let’s not be ahistorical and pretend that CANSPAM was created out of a vacuum that didn’t involve the DMA or email marketers. If anything, it put permission based email marketing on the map as a more acceptable and profitable form of performance marketing.

Sam