Originally Posted by
xyzzy
The SPAM came from a company called Internet Brands. This company recently purchased FlyerTalk from Randy Petersen. One can certainly expect IB to try and recoup the money they paid for FT, however:
- Sending SPAM to us was a truly bad business decision.
- Doing so after the porn ads and malware popups has made many of us lose trust in IB/FT.
- Misconfiguring the opt-out address was inexcusable (and illegal).
- Sending blatant SPAM that doesn't even try to let the recipient know the sender has anything to do with FT is totally stupid.
IB seems to be rapidly devaluing the good will it purchased from Randy.
CAN-SPAM is quite clear about providing a functioning Opt-Out.
It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a "menu" of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.
Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor's email address. You cannot help another entity send email to that address, or have another entity send email on your behalf to that address. Finally, it's illegal for you to sell or transfer the email addresses of people who choose not to receive your email, even in the form of a mailing list, unless you transfer the addresses so another entity can comply with the law.
Clearly the opt-out mechanism offered in the SPAM was not functional and thus a possible violation of the law (I need to point out that I am a Lay person and do not posses any qualifications to judge legality other than to make a guess from what I have read on the site that I have linked above).
Dan