New business e-mail rules proposed

HR Magazine, July, 2005 by Bill Leonard

Just weeks after a new set of regulations took effect for the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a new proposal that could have a significant impact on the way companies train employees to send and process business-related e-mails.

The FTC's proposed changes have little to do with the so-called "primary purpose" rules, which took effect March 28. Those rules addressed issues such as the definition of unsolicited commercial e-mails (commonly called spam) and the distribution of commercial e-mails. The new rule revisions focus primarily on changing the definition of terms such as "sender" and "person" and reducing the amount of time businesses have to process any "opt-out" requests from e-mail recipients.

It may seem odd to some that the rules need a definition of the words "person" and "sender." However, a recent letter sent to the FTC by the Washington, D.C.-based Direct Marketing Association (DMA) showed that defining these terms isn't quite as cut-and-dried as it might appear. The problem arises from concerns that the term "person" applies only to individuals and not the businesses for which they work. Also, the term "sender" can get confusing when e-mails promote the products or services of several different businesses.

The DMA sent the letter earlier this year, and the FTC's prompt response and call to change the rules drew praise from officials with the association.

"We at the Direct Marketing Association are pleased with the FTC's commitment to clarification of an area that has such a tremendous impact on a great number of businesses," said Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president, government affairs.

In the proposed rule changes, the FTC would define the term "person" to include individuals and groups, unincorporated associations, partnerships, corporations and other business entities. The definition for "sender" would become "the person who initiated the message and was the only person who controlled the content of the message, determined the e-mail addresses to which it would be sent, or was identified in the 'from' line as the sender."

The proposal further stipulates that if no single person controlled the message content, then all persons or entities involved with distributing the e-mail would be considered senders.

The rule revisions would reduce the time a commercial e-mail sender has to process opt-out requests from recipients from 10 to three days. The revisions make it clear that senders cannot require a person who doesn't want to receive commercial e-mails to pay a fee or provide any information other than his or her e-mail address for that purpose.

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Even though the CAN-SPAM regulations exempt most messages concerning HR-related transactions, employers and HR professionals would be wise to familiarize themselves with the regulations and proposed revisions, according to staff members with the Society for Human Resource Management's Governmental Affairs Department. Because many organizations conduct business through their Internet sites and electronic messaging, the CAN-SPAM rules could have a major impact on the way companies train employees to send and process business-related e-mails.

BILL LEONARD IS SENIOR WRITER FOR HR NEWS.