There's been a lot of buzz lately about whether or not WhiteHouse.gov sent unsolicited emails to various lists promoting health care reform. What should you think of this? The fact is that the White House didn't technically break any laws. According to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, it is legal to send unsolicited email to recipients as long as the subject line isn't fraudulent or misleading and the email includes a mailing address and an unsubscribe link that is honored within 10 days of the unsubscribe request. Further, according to the law, political emails cannot "by law" be considered spam. Yes -- while writing the law, politicians made sure that they couldn't get in trouble for any emails that they send.

So what can marketers learn from this issue?

In considering this issue, there are a few questions that we should ask ourselves. Let's take them one at a time.

1. How can I modify my email marketing practices to ensure I don't end up in a similar situation?

Hopefully this will remind email marketers of the best practices that they should be following (regardless of the law) and the importance of maintaining a strong opt-in program. It is imperative that marketers communicate clearly with their list members and properly set expectations for the type of messages they will be receiving at the time of opt-in. If recipients don't remember signing up to receive your email communication, they will perceive your email as spam, and no "opt-in" record is going to change that perception.

2. Will this controversy prompt any changes to the way that spam is perceived and spam policy enforced?

Perhaps the coverage of this "non-issue" will increase the level of interest in the fight against spam and inspire email legislation with some teeth in it. The CAN-SPAM Act was originally designed to prosecute fraudulent spammers while leaving the rules fairly relaxed for legitimate business. While it is true that the FCC came out with new guidelines for the CAN-SPAM Act last year, the law is still relatively weak. Until new legislation is created, we are unfortunately not going to see a drop in unsolicited email volumes.

3. When will email spam becomes obsolete, given that there are so many other ways for people to communicate now, such as social networking sites?

There are some people who believe that social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are going to replace email one day. While I personally don't agree with this statement, it does spark the question: How would the existing legislation need to change in order to govern social network spam?

Today alone, I have received numerous unwanted emails, IMs, Skype conversation invites, and social networking messages from people I didn't know, or that I simply have no interest in communicating with. We have a deep base of established best practices for email, but I have seen very little written about best practices for mass communications via social media. Spammers have obviously moved beyond email, and industry best practices and legislation should expand to address these other channels as well.

The bottom line is that high-profile issues like the White House emails shine light on the weakness of the current legislation in relation to established industry best practices and changing market trends. Given that spam is rapidly expanding beyond email, we as an industry need to make sure that we are following best practices across all of our marketing efforts and stay ahead of the curve as our audiences evolve.

Good luck and good sending.

Spencer Kollas is director of delivery services for StrongMail Systems.

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