2009 was an interesting year for changes in Federal regulations which affect Internet marketers.  There were changes to CAN-SPAM, and a revision of rules by the Federal Trade Commission; both of which directly impact Internet marketers.

 Below are three Federal regulations which Internet marketers must follow:

 1.  Email Sent Out Featuring Someone Else’s Product or Service

 Email sent out featuring a third-party’s product or service must also include information about the entity that is actually sending out the email, otherwise the third-party can be deemed solely responsible under CAN-SPAM for handling all opt-outs.  Put another way, if your product or service is advertised in email being sent out by someone else, be sure that they include information about themselves in the email, or you may find yourself legally liable for helping users opt out of the mailings.  This is known as the “designated sender rule”.

 2.  Email Sent by Affiliates

 Vendors are legally liable under the Federal CAN-SPAM law if their affiliates use spam to advertise the vendor’s product or to otherwise generate sales for the vendor.  This means that if your affiliate sends email featuring your product or service, and that email is deemed to be spam, then you may be legally as guilty of spamming as your affiliate, especially if you knew or should have known that the affiliate was using spam to advertise your product.

 3.  Testimonials, Reviews, and Endorsements in Marketing on the Internet

 The use of testimonials on the Internet is now being more strictly regulated by the Federal Trade Commission, and testimonials that suggest outstanding results that are not actual typical results must disclose that the results being featured in the testimonial are not typical, and must indicate what typical results can be expected.

 Additionally, if you favorably review or endorse a product or service, and you have been in any way compensated or provided with a benefit in exchange for the review or endorsement (or even if you just have a relationship with the provider of that product or service) you must disclose that information.  

For example, if Acme provided you for free with that nifty widget that you just reviewed, you must disclose in your review your relationship with Acme, and that Acme provided the widget at no charge.

 While these three rules may seem onerous or burdensome, they are not really that difficult to follow once you understand them, and following them not only keeps you within the law, but distinguishes and identifies your business as being above-board and ethical.

 
Anne P. Mitchell is an Internet attorney and law professor, and runs the Institute for Social Internet Public Policy (ISIPP), best known for their SuretyMail Email Accreditation service.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 9 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/24376105/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-9
FeedFront issue 9 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article002334

Few people are aware of, much less understand, the “Vendor Liability” clause of CAN-SPAM. Yet it is critical for anyone who has affiliates to understand this aspect of Federal anti-spam law, as it is specifically aimed at affiliate program administrators who ignore spam complaints about affiliates.

The Vendor Liability section of CAN-SPAM works like this: if you have an affiliate who is sending email that advertises your product, and that email is in violation of CAN-SPAM, then *you* are on the hook, legally, just as if you yourself had hit the “send” button.

The test is whether you stand to profit from that spam, and if you do, then the explanation that “I didn’t actually send the email” just won’t cut it. And of course, if one of your affiliates is spamming information about your product, then you *do* stand to profit from that spam.

The Vendor Liability section of CAN-SPAM does require that you either knew – or *should have known* – that your affiliate was sending spam.

It’s that “should have known” that really puts affiliate program administrators on the hook. It means that you have to carefully monitor who joins your affiliate program, and even more carefully monitor what they are doing once they have joined. And it means that you have to pay particular attention to any spam complaints that may come in for any of your affiliates.

Once you start receiving spam complaints about a particular affiliate, at that point you *should* know that they are spamming and that you stand to benefit from the spam that they are sending.

This may seem like an onerous law, and it *is* burdensome. In fact, many affiliate program administrators will no longer allow their affiliates to use email at all in conjunction with their affiliate programs. But it’s important to understand that there is a breed of rogue affiliate who signs up for all sorts of affiliate programs, and then blasts spam out to millions of people with whom they have no relationship, to turn a quick buck. And there is a corresponding breed of affiliate program administrator who looks the other way so long as the money keeps rolling in.

The Vendor Liability section of CAN-SPAM is intended to nip this in the bud, holding affiliate program administrators accountable as the beneficiaries of their affiliates’ illegal spamming activity.

Because of this, if you administer an affiliate program – or participate in affiliate programs yourself – it’s important that you be very familiar with the requirements of CAN-SPAM. We offer free CAN-SPAM compliance resources on our site, at http://www.ISIPP.com/.

Anne Mitchell is the CEO of ISIPP, which provides email deliverability and accreditation services to make sure your email makes it to the inbox, and not the junk folder.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 5 here – http://feedfront.com/feedfront-issue5.pdf
FeedFront issue 5 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00category/issue-5