First things first, Im not a legal expert and so this article DOES NOT represent any legal or professional information and nor can I guarantee its accuracy. I only wrote this article to introduce you to these email laws that might affect us, email marketers.
OK, so whatre these email laws
Theyre the Child Protection Registry laws that have been taken into effect in the State of Michigan and Utah.
These laws established Do Not Email registries into which individuals or institutions that primarily serve minors can enter minors email addresses or any email address to which minors may have access. Institutions or entities that primarily serve minors can also register their entire domain names.
People are prohibited by these laws from sending email to the addresses that have been in the registries for 30 days or more if the email contains material or link to material that is illegal for minors. And it doesnt matter whether the email is solicited or unsolicited, you still cant send such email.
You might think that the materials must be something obvious such as pornography, gambling, alcohol, etc. Yes, but theyre only part of the materials.
The other part consists of less obvious stuff, namely stuff that looks fine, but might be illegal for minors because minors are prohibited by law from viewing, receiving, participating, possessing, or purchasing this stuff. This includes automotive sales, etc.
And according to the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy, these laws apply to almost all people in the United States and even those outside the United States who have a physical presence in the United States. (see )
So, imagine you have some email addresses in your list that happen to be already in the do not email registry for 30 days, but youre not aware of them. And one day, you send an email that contains a link to a webpage that has some Adsense ads that advertise some automotive sales, guess what may happen to you
Well, your action may be considered as a computer crime and you might face civil suit and fines or/and you might even face criminal suit and penalty.
So far, there are two things that you can do to prevent you from getting trouble with these laws.
First, make sure that you never send email that contains material or link to material which is illegal for minors. This is so obvious, right
Second, if you think that you cant comply with the first option, then you can purge your list by matching it against the registries in a regular basis. But there are fees for this.
Dont panic about these laws. Instead, find more information about it. You can start learning more about these laws by visiting the references below:
- Michigan Childrens Protection Registry site:
- Michigan Public Act No. 241:
- Michigan Public Act No. 242:
- Utah Code - Child Protection Registry:
- Michigan governments press release:
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Website promotion is certainly a main focus of all business owners and their respective Web sites; however it is not something that happens overnight. This is because once you have a new Web site it takes a bit of time before search engines upload your URL and it becomes part of search results. Also, while your Web page might be returned in the results of free search engines, it will still not relate to the amount of traffic you want. As a result, there is one particular way to increase traffic to your Web site that is inexpensive, and that is web site promotion through newsletters.
Many newsletter editors online are looking for new information from new business all the time. However, they generally do not want to pay for the article you write but rather prefer to trade a byline or a small advertisement for your business or web page. As a result, all you need to do is spend a few hours writing a newsletter that discusses a relevant topic and that also has a plug for your web page. This is a way for you to quickly get the word out about your web page as well as increase traffic and business while you are waiting for the search engines to get your information in the system and part of the search results.
Finding newsletter editors online that need information submitted and will allow you to trade a newsletter for an advertisement plug is not difficult and all you need to do is search your favorite search engine. However, whatever newsletter editor you are writing for, you will want to make sure its subscribers are part of your niche or it might not prove very successful for you.
Make sure, however, you do not transfer the copyright of your article to anyone, but only grant the right to print your newsletter. By doing this, you can submit this one newsletter to multiple ezines and the like and reach many more potential subscribers than you would with only one. Also, it saves you time because you do not have to write new newsletters for every ezine.When you write the resource box for your advertisement, make sure you include your entire web site address so individuals can simply click on the address and be taken directly to your page rather than having to cut and paste. The easier you make it, the more individuals will take a look at what you have to offer. Also, you might consider using different advertisements from time to time in order to rate which ones are most productive at getting individuals to actually click on the link. The one that generates the most traffic is certainly the one you want to use, however you will need to play with your advertisement a little in order to get it just like you want and have it generate the most traffic possible for your new web site.
Copyright 2005 Paul Jesse
Paul Jesse is a retired government employee and author of numerous home business articles. It you are interested in starting a Internet home business visit his site.