You Must Submit Your Comments Online, By Mail or By Courier (Fed Ex or 2nd Day Air) Before April 20th

The FTC is considering putting rules in place that would require the use of suppression lists that will affect anyone who promotes any products using email, including people who only send mail to those who've asked for it.

A requirement like that will pretty much spell the end for any promotion of affiliate programs through email. It will do serious damage to promotion of most non-affiliate products as well.

We need to make clear to the Commission just how much damage these sorts of regulations would do to legitimate businesses and to consumers, while doing nothing to stop the problem CAN-SPAM was passed to address.

Note: The deadline for comments is April 20th. We need to act now to keep them from hamstringing legitimate businesses.

You can submit your comments two ways. Either by electronic submission using an online form or by mail or courier. If using the online form you don't have to check everything on the survey form. Just fill in the stuff at the top (at least what's got asterixes next to it) and enter your comments on suppression lists in the space at the bottom.

I've included a sample comment below. You can use these sample comments for submitting online or for sending by mail. Please DO NOT just copy and paste this into the form at that site. Take a few minutes and type it out in your own words. It will have much more impact that way.

To be sure that your comments are considered, they should start with this subject:

If you use email for your business at all, this affects you. If you advertise anything on your websites, and don't even send ads to your subscribers or personal contacts, this could sneak around and bite you. Some of what the FTC is considering is so sweeping it could mean eliminating any mention of your site - even in private emails!

We need to make ourselves heard on this. NOW.

A sample comment is included below with step by step instructions on how to submit your comments electronically or by mail/courier/overnight delivery.

Make sure you include your own name, state and country in the comments you send to the Commission.

If you want to get a better overview of the problem before writing up your own comments, go to: http://www.learnsteps4profit.com/antispamga.html

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 To the Commissioners, I applaud your efforts to curb the problem of unsolicited bulk email. However, I am concerned about the proposed requirement for merchants to maintain suppression lists. There are so many problems and costs associated with this idea, and so much damage done to consumers and businesses alike, that I feel I must urge you to consider this matter most carefully. Requirement of the use of suppression lists will seriously damage many of the legitimate publications available on the net. My specific concern is for harm to publishers who require permission from the consumer prior to adding them to any list. They're not who CAN-SPAM was designed to put out of business, but this requirement will very likely have that effect. There's also the potential for significant harm to consumers, because of the problem of properly knowing their intent when they unsubscribe from a list. On top of that, these suppression lists could easily fall into the hands of spammers, leading to more spam instead of less. I was quite surprised at the potential problems this ruling could involve, and urge you in the strongest possible terms to reconsider its implementation in light of these problems, Respectfully, Your Name Your State and Country

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It's Crucial You Submit Your Comments Two Ways:

Submit Your Comments Electronically:

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR COMMENTS ELECTRONICALLY

Full submission instructions are provided on the next page.

Also Submit Your Comments by Mail:

In addition to submitting online, please also submit your comments by Mail.

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR COMMENTS BY MAIL

The reason we're asking you to submit twice (online and by mail) for this is we feel the FTC will take a written letter more seriously than digitally delivered comments so please, please use 2nd Day Air to Fed Ex or UPS a letter. I don't care if you write it, print it or type it out, but it's better if you add some written comments in your own words. Form letters are not taken as seriously to my knowledge as someone who took the time to express individual comments.