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Anti-Spam Requirements for Email & SMS Announcements

By sending email or SMS Announcements from our system you are accepting our terms of service. Your emails and text messages must comply with the US CAN-SPAM Act and the laws of the countries your recipients live in. It is your responsibility to ensure that you comply with such regulations, and you will be held liable if you do not.

If you are required by regulation to ask clients to opt-in to marketing campaigns, you can easily do this by adding an Opt-in field to your Client Card settings. For more information, refer to this section on how to create an opt-in field on your forms.

In addition, text (SMS) campaigns or announcements must comply with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991.

Please note that our system has built-in spam detection mechanisms, including detection of any suspicious activity around client lists, uploading of external lists, email bounce rate, misleading or illegal content / graphics, spam abuse activity, violation of copyright and so on.

If suspicious activity is detected on your account, the account will be locked without notice.

International Requirements By Country

For your convenience, we have gathered links to anti-spam legislation or the name of the anti-spam law in countries outside the US.  Please note these might be updated at any time, and it is your responsibility to ensure you comply with the latest requirements in your country.

Australia

Spam Act 2003, Act No. 129 of 2003 as amended.
Click here to see Key Elements of the Spam Act by ACMA

Austria

Telecommunications Act 2003

Belgium

Commission de la protection de la vie privée, Le spam en Belgique Etat des lieux en juillet 2003, July 4, 2003

Canada

Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) amends the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act. It is very similar to CAN-SPAM but has some minor differences and covers all electronic messages, not just email. Check out  CASL basics.

China

Measures for Administration of E-Mail Service on Internet (2006)
( Unofficial English Translation)

Cyprus

Section 06 of the Regulation of Electronic Communications and Postal Services Law of 2004 (Law 12 (I) / 2004 deals with unsolicited communications (spam)

Czech Republic

Act No. 480/2004 Coll., on Certain Information Society Services

Estonia

Information Society Service Act

EU

Article 13 of DIRECTIVE 2002/58/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (Directive on privacy and electronic communications).

The EU body that addresses spam is  The Contact Network of Spam Enforcement Authorities (CNSA).

The Directive is implemented by each member state independently so you will want to check with your particular country law for more details.

France

Falls under the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) [National Data Processing and Liberties Commission], Electronic Mailing and Data Protection (Oct. 14, 1999) (French) CNIL Guidelines on email marketing.

Germany

Art. 7 German Unfair Competition Law (Gesetz gegen Unlauteren Wettbewerb) (UWG)

Art. 202a, 263, 303a, 303b of the German Criminal Code Art. 6 of the German Law regarding Information Society Services Art. 28 Par. 4 of the German Data Protection Act

India

Information Technology Act of 2000

Italy

Italy's anti-spam laws are very strict. You can even be imprisoned for sending spam. If you're sending to Italian recipients, follow these guidelines as well.

Personal Data Protection Code (legislative decree no. 196/2003)

The Code transposed EC Directive 95/46 on the protection of personal data and EC Directive 2002/58 on privacy in electronic communications; it consolidated all Italian pre-existing laws and regulations in this sector.

DL 196/2003 Personal Data Protection Code • DL 675/1996 on privacy protection states, inter alia, that a company must have authorization from each user whose personal data (such as e-mail) they want to use. • DL 171/1998 (deriving from the European Community directive 97/66/CE) on telecommunications privacy protection: this put outlaws all automatic systems to call a user and says that all the expenses of an advertising must be paid by the company and not the user (faxes and e-mails are instead paid also by the user).

DL 185/1999 (deriving from the European Community directive 97/7/CE) on customer protection with respect to long-distance contracts: this obliges companies to seek the permission of the user for virtual or telephone sales.

Netherlands

Dutch law requires very explicit permission and heavily protects data and privacy.

New Zealand

The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007. The Department of Internal Affairsprovides detailed guidelines on the anti-spam laws.

South Africa

Regulation of Spam in South Africa - South African Law

Sweden

Swedish Marketing Act (Swedish Code of Statutes, SFS 1995:450).

Personal Data Act (Swedish Code of Statutes, SFS 1998:204), in so far as spam activities involve processing of personal data.

UK

The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations

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