Avoid fraudulent promotions. The government charges money for spamming under the new CAN-SPAM Act signed by President George W. Bush. The Act is a federal initiative designed to regulate the most harmful and annoying practices of spammers. Violation of the Act can result in the following consequences.



1Revenue losses and damage of reputation.

2Major e-mail service providers block the messages.

3ISP may shut down the e-mail account.

4The web host may shut down the web site.

5Under the new federal CAN-SPAM Act, the government may fine spammers up to $2 million or sentence them to jail for up to five years.

Honestly promote a legitimate business to sell real and valuable products or services.

Operate a Legitimate Business

Do not use false headers to get into peoples? inboxes. Avoid using deceptive subject lines, hijacking other peoples' e-mail accounts or computers to send spam, creating e-mail or IP addresses specifically to send spam, sending unsolicited e-mail with sexual content and sending emails to people who have requested to be removed from the list. These are malicious ways of forcing messages into the inboxes of people who don't want them. This is not only annoying, but also illegal.

Plan Responsible E-Mail Promotions

Always obtain permission from the target users before sending them emails. Users must never get emails they are not expecting. Avoid buying or renting email lists as at times the buyer ends up paying for addresses that are invalid. When using email lists, find out how the addresses were collected. If people in the purchased list have not agreed to receive email related to promotion or advertisements, the buyer might be charged with spamming.

Be careful when choosing a subject line. It should be self-explanatory about the content of the email. Mention the return address and place a functional ?unsubscribe? link in all the emails. When dealing with an exhaustive list of emails seek professional help to install an ASP or another suitable program to manage ?opt-ins? and ?unsubscribe? requests. Send commercial or promotional emails and newsletters only through the company's official email address.

Before sending emails as text messages or HTML, test them on multiple email clients. This avoids complications, since consumers use many different email applications. Several email client applications are available for free downloads, which can be used for testing purposes. Optimize email delivery systems by using dedicated list management software or services.

After optimizing an email delivery system, test it with a content checking service to see if it appears like spam. This avoids the messages being sent immediately to junk folders. Stay educated about e-mail marketing and spam laws. Laws and their definitions are changing so obtain regular updates on the related laws.