UnsubCentral Announces Support of FTC’s Latest Round of CAN-SPAM Rulemaking

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AUSTIN, TX — 12/21/2004 — UnsubCentral, the industry leader in email list suppression management solutions, today announced that it strongly supports the Federal Trade Commission’s December 16 CAN-SPAM ruling. CAN-SPAM regulates all commercial email including solicitations (promotional), purchase confirmations (transactional), and relationship messages (newsletter).The FTC’s announcement of the “dual-purpose” rule provides a clear methodology for determining the “primary purpose” of an email message containing both promotional and non-promotional content.

Prior to the dual-purpose ruling, many email senders were confused about the legal requirements for sending messages that included both commercial and non-commercial content. According to UnsubCentral CEO, Joshua Baer, “To date, our most savvy customers integrate targeted up-sell and cross-sell opportunities into transactional messages because it delivers the strongest returns. Until now, this was an ambiguous situation that we conservatively managed on their behalf. The new FTC definition of dual-purpose email messages provides businesses that send multi-purpose content with the measuring stick they have needed to ensure that their email practices comply with CAN-SPAM requirements.”

The new rule specifies two elements of a dual-purpose message that will determine its commercial status. The first rests on the likeliness of a recipient to reasonably perceive the subject line of an email message or body as predominantly commercial. The second focuses on how much of the actual message is commercial. If, for instance, a credit union sends an e-statement to a member, but the transactional message is overshadowed by commercial offers, the primary purpose will be deemed commercial because, in laymen terms, the email message is mainly an advertisement.

In 2004, UnsubCentral began providing its customer base of the nation’s top affiliate marketing networks and Fortune 500 advertisers with a trusted-third party solution for achieving compliance with CAN-SPAM. This included managing dual-purpose messages in accordance with the new FTC rules. As Shawn Collins, Director of Affiliate Marketing comments, “UnsubCentral has always provided us with simple and cost-effective solutions for safely managing compliance in an email regulatory environment that is continuously evolving. The fact that UnsubCentral’s existing solution was already aligned with the FTC’s latest rule is no surprise at all.”

About UnsubCentral

UnsubCentral, Inc. provides email suppression and consumer preference management solutions to leading advertisers, ad networks, and affiliate networks. The Austin, Texas-based corporation offers solutions that create a secure environment for managing opt-out lists across the enterprise, affiliates and various third parties. Integrated with major affiliate networks and email service providers and reviewed by TRUSTe, the solutions ensure clients comply with the CAN-SPAM Act and data privacy requirements. For more information, please visit www.unsubcentral.com.

About ClubMom

ClubMom® (created and administered by CMI Marketing, Inc.) is a FREE national membership organization, with more than a million members, that recognizes, rewards and celebrates moms for what they do every day, by offering rewards and savings from America’s best companies, ways to save time, meet other moms, and get mom’s voice heard.

ClubMom was established by Meredith Vieira, moderator of the popular daytime talk show “The View,” actor and social activist Andrew Shue, entrepreneur and ClubMom Chief Executive Officer, Michael Sanchez, amonth others. Investors include Highland Capital Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Board members include Shelly Lazarus, Chairman and CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, and Sara Levinson, President of the Women’s Group at Rodale Publishing, and former President of NFL Properties at MTV-Music Group.

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Contact:
Lana McGilvray
Vice President, Marketing
UnsubCentral
sales@unsubcentral.com
512.857.7303

SOURCE: UnsubCentral