The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM) regulates commercial email and requires businesses to allow recipients to opt-out of future messages.

CAN-SPAM does not require a business to get a person’s permission to send them an email, but it does require the business to allow people to unsubscribe from receiving additional emails.

Here are other CAN-SPAM provisions that affect email marketing:

• Almost all emails must include the business’s mailing address;
• Deceptive content is prohibited, such as fraudulent subject lines and return addresses;
• Automated harvesting of email addresses from websites is prohibited;
• Businesses who have procured spammers’ services can be implicated.