THE END of affiliate programs = CAN-SPAM?
 

Bush is going to sign the Can-Spam bill into law soon...

I'm pretty sure your company will then be liable for the ANY email marketing your affilliates do... which could make you liable for millions of dollars (that the gov would collect) just from the results of one rogue affiliates marketing.

Sure, you could try to sue that affilliate... but in the mean time your company is the one that takes the heat.


I think CAN-SPAM is going to seriously change the way this industry operates.

Its definitly something interesting... The times are changin...

It makes you unconditionally liable for people advertising your product(s) or service(s).

The penalties as slated can be multi-million dollar fines and/or jailtime.

Who's going to be rolling the dice with this one?

Damn, that isn't good! But how is the sponser lible if they say that in their terms & services that they don't allow spam, and the affiliate still spams?

jDoG

Programs were already liable..

These two legal doctrines:

Agency by estoppel
Partnership by etoppel

V

its a very scary thing that anyone can spam a program and get them in trouble, its like the do not call list what prevents someone from alling you and saying hi im calling from ATT would you like a cell phone.

You guys haven't read the bill carefully. This bill is a handout to bulk e-mailers like your Medicare bill is a handout to pharmacy companies. Essentially it stops all states (California) from enforcing their own serious laws, while basically making it legal to spam as long as you follow their rules. Sure it puts the two bit proxy spammers out of business, but the big guys are laughing.

Spammers have lobbyists too. :glugglug

It's would be a Federal law that you or your company would have to be compliance with. Your T&C that would try to shift responsibility would mean jack shit.

That's not the way I read it.

spamlaws.com has a link to it... but the font those people wrote that bill in discourages damn near everyone from reading it. It's in some whacky cursive italisized font that is unbearable.

But could the DA or FTC come after you as well?

From what I read on spamlaws, most state laws allowed the recip to sue the spammer..... but now the state (in californias case) or the gov (when the CAN-SPAM goes live) will be able to do it... to the tune of millions.

DNC list is like $25/per area code per year... or $74xx something for the whole nation I believe. It's like found money for the government :)

Sales of the DoNotEmail list to legitimate mailers (people doing opt-ints) and spammers alike, are going to make up for lost USPS revenues and then some :thumbsup

I laugh at those of you who think this bill is going to hurt email marketers more than it does help.. :1orglaugh

You do understand after the 1st you wont be seeing a decrease in mail but an increase.. Everyone and their brother will be trying to cash in on "Email Marketing" and those of us who are already doing it will either straighten out or move offshores.. :thumbsup

So what are their rules? I didnt read the bill...

And as only affiliates from the US can be successfully sued, would that mean non-US affiliates would not be allowed anylonger?

What if the non-US affiliate is promoting a US company?

bush is such an idiot........such a FUCKING idiot.

how about the free email programs?

"A late amendment to the bill by Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz., makes businesses knowingly promoted in UCE with false or misleading header information subject to FTC penalties and enforcement remedies, regardless of whether the FTC is able to identify the spammer who initiated the e-mail. "


http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/3286751

Heres a good summary of it..

http://tinyurl.com/ye2m

Oh shit... finally... a Federal standard :(

Hmmm if you move offshore, make sure you use offshore sponsors as well because if this bill becomes law, US-based sponsors are liable for their promoters' spam (regardless of whether domestic or offshore).

Prediction: Massive wave of online companies moving offshore.

At that point, the US will need an International Convention or Treaty on Spam to facilitate prosecutions. Good fucking luck on that one!

Here's what state Attorney Generals (people who are in a better position to judge this law think about CAN SPAM:

"Attorney Generals from California, Kansas, Maryland, Nevada, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington signed the letter, which said that the amended act has so many loopholes, exceptions and standards of proof that it won't protect consumers. They also said that the law wouldn't deter spammers, but merely foster more litigation."

Source: http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/3105361

Why all US resident think USA = World?

300 000 000 / 6 000 000 000

USA only 5%

Stop spams is a good idea. I hope it will success.

Stop Bush is a good idea too. I dont like wars.

well the US has more than 50% of all active internet surfers

the pharma companies got a taste of the mail..there is no way it is going away anytime soon.


It only set the stage for responsible mailers to take over


BTW..I love the mail..get in touch:thumbsup
163879276

There would probably be some sort of judicial/administrative proceeding to figure out any malfeasance. Unless I'm reading it wrong, the bill stops short of imposing strict liability on spammers' sponsors.:2 cents:

Don't be so naive. There is gonna be very thin line between spammers and responsible mailers.

You expect the government to tell the difference?

I wouldn't be that pessimistic. Regardless... with the threat of liability attaching to sponsors, affiliate programs will definitely change.

My guess is ... plan to see more pre-qualification screening for affiliates like those conducted by Lightspeedcash. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Better start looking over your shoulders... Saw a few days ago that in 2005, China will have 100 million high speed surfers...

Its about fuckin time, email spamming is for fuckin lazy fuckers that cant market their product in an honets way. KILL ALL FUCKIN EMAIL SPAMMERS!!!!

It's definitely hard to tell whats going on, but once the law is in effect you'll see how the government pursues prosecution if it does. Even if the law is on the books and strictly forbids spam if the governemnt doesn't enforce it then it hasn't really changed anything.

Hey, we all know copying songs is illegal but even so tons of people still do it, the government and corps know, and they still can't shut it down. Obviously this isn't an exact parrallel, but I think its a decent enough example that a law does not equal enforcement of the law.

Maybe they'll just enforce it against the adult industry.

If that law gets enforced against you... its a safe bet that you're gonna go bankrupt.

Considering that, say this is doomsday for affilliate programs.... then places for prepaid traffic like Hun, CHoker, and the 43,000 TGP's out there will have a much higher demand.

But most TGP's that display user submitted pics could have their own shakedown.... (2257 violations)


Between Verified by Visa in March, other Visa/MC/IPSP regulations, Aca CIA, DOJ obscenitity cases, and this anti spam thing that will most likely effect affiliate programs....

I would guess that online adult could be about 10% of what it is now by october... surprise.

so all marketing emails will have "ADV" or "Advertisement" in the subject line...

will this increase/decrease spam? not intitially, but what about in the long run when users begin to add the terms "ADV" and "Advertisement" to their filters?

These fuctards in the government dont realise that all these people are going to go out of the country and spend their tax dollars on another country.

Oh well, who gives a fuck just as long as the affiliates make their money it does not matter to them.

well 10% sounds like a "sky is falling" analogy, not to say that it's not possible, but you have like 5 things cited, and all of them have to go exactly by the books for the fallout you mention. I think the acacia thing will eventually die down, just look at whats happening with SCO and IBM, the judge is finally requesting the actual code that infringes on the license to be presented and SCO is of course having a hell of a time finding it, hence the entire lawsuit may be dropped. Visa regulations we'll see how that goes, I dont think they want to close down the entire adult industry because that's a ton of money for them, but certainly chargebacks have been an issue and they are addressing that in a manner thats most profitable and least cost expensive for them. It's certainly already had massive reprocussions but mostly for programs that weren't exactly upfront about everything, such as trials converting to full memberships, difficult to find cancellation, etc. There were plenty of programs running that werent near the 1% before those regulations kicked in that had nothing to fear. So yes a few scammers and a few less than honest people got hit, but then again if you make your money scamming you shouldn't consider that a reliable and dependant source of income.

As for the spamming, that one is still to new, but if anything spam regulation and prosecution has been anything but clear, quick, and decisive, so yes there may be one or two scape goats, or one or two real trials, but it's not going to hit everyone quickly.

What's really funny is spammers who write adu1t or v1agra. No real person would ever write either of those words in that way, so that's a 100% match for a spam email, adding that to a filter automatically kills a ton of crap. Now putting viagra or adult in an email raises the spam percentage, but not enough to automatically classify it as spam without further reading the message. So actually giving the proper info in the email makes it more difficult for a good spam filter to be applied.

yeah if this puts mailers out of business, the affiliate programs will have to look to Choker to make up their sales. :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Nope, it doesn't say that, in fact I think it gets rid of that rule. It just has to not be misleading.

TERRORIST!

---
This Act supersedes any statute, regulation, or rule of a State or political subdivision of a State that expressly regulates the use of electronic mail to send commercial messages, except to the extent that any such statute, regulation, or rule prohibits falsity or deception in any portion of a commercial electronic mail message or information attached thereto.
---

This part is interesting, notice the "except to the extent" does this mean the state laws that outlaw use of false header info is enforceable? Kinda looks like it.

Also, even an offshore business can be sued in the U.S. read some of the States Long Arm Statutes. They provide for suing out of country businesses. And I bet most affiliate programs have some sort of assests in the U.S. just look at processing. They could serve Visa with a judgmenet enforcement and take all your money.

V

yup...


and



whooooooooooooooooooshhhhhhhhhhhhhh



// listen to the sound of more money moving...





I predict more true offshore processing options showing up in 04 as a result of some of that bill...


although I also predict that spam as we know it will significantly decrease as a result of better technology...I don't accept shit from people I don't know on ICQ, should work the same for email really and from the sound of it earthlink and yahoo are already on the way to pushing that pretty hard...

yeah. you're right. i must have gotten it mixed up with one of the other dozen or so antispam bills they got flying around the senate/congress.

nope, this one says nothing about marking a spam as an ad. what a mess.

Exactly. That's one thing that probably would have hurt spammers, and, suprise suprise, it's gone. I firmly believe that George Bush is going out of his way to prove that he will do ANYTHING for money, no matter what effect it has.

Hmm .. I get like 10 times as much mainstream spam as I get adult spam .. and I've given my e-mail address to 10 times as many adult related places as I have mainstream ..

Like no shit .. I'm not sure that adult spamming is the primary target of all of the spam regulations .. ?

Just a thought ..

A DoNotEmail list would put my company out of business (non-adult, opt-in only event marketing).

There's no way I can afford to buy the hardware needed to bounce my lists off that database.. unless they implement it as a web service or something where I submit my lists and get flagged records back. My lists are relatively small - no single list over about 200k.

Besides, the DoNoEmail stuff only applies to US marketers - most SPAM comes from outside. fuckers.. :mad:

The bill permits e-mail marketers to send unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE) as long as the message contains an opt-out mechanism, a functioning return e-mail address, a valid subject line indicating it is an advertisement and the legitimate physical address of the mailer.:eek7

OK this is Great and I hope all the spammers get shut down as well as the sponsors that allow spam traffic. However it all really won't matter much (for adult spamming anyway) because within a year Visa will have completely stopped processing all adult transactions:2 cents:

Can you imagen the wacky realworld mail and harashment that could come to the po boxes? LMAO This should provide some real entertainment in a few months... LOL

This law is a joke. :2 cents:

V