Any business that sends unsolicited email that a recipient did not voluntarily subscribe to, must have “opt out” instructions contained in the email. Even when a recipient has voluntarily subscribed to any form of email distribution, opt-out information must still be included in every email.
The law requires you to honor all opt-out requests within ten (10) business days. After ten days have passed since the recipient requested no further contact, it is illegal to email them again. You cannot use different email addresses from your company to continue mailing them, unless they give you specific permission to do so.
After an opt-out has been requested, the only further communication you can legally send to the recipient is verification that they will, or have been, removed from your emailing list.
Opt-out legal requirements include:
- Valid Return Address: The email must contain a valid return address, or other working Internet-based option (like a website or list serve function) to allow the recipient to request that they receive no further emails from you.
- Opt-Out Tools Must Remain Working for 30 Days: Persons wishing to unsubscribe may not read their mail in a timely fashion, or reply right away. Therefore, the CAN-SPAM Act requires that any opt-out option or tool you offer must continue to be working for thirty (30) days from the last mailing when it was offered.
In other words, you cannot offer an opt-out web URL than then remove it a day later. If you use an automated list-serve, it must remain working for at least 30 days after it has been offered as an unsubscribe option.
- Menu-Driven Opt-Out Lists: If you use a menu of opt-out options (i.e. if you offer multiple mailing lists or subscriptions) you can offer the user the option of selecting one or more mailings to unsubscribe from.
You cannot require recipients to check multiple items one at a time to completely unsubscribe. You must include the option of unsubscribing from all future mailings on the list of menu choices.
