With the one year anniversary of CAN-SPAM passing into law now past, I am seeing a number of articles (like this one) all concurring that CAN-SPAM has been totally ineffective in stemming the tide of spam emanating from the United States. In fact U.S. orginating spam has grown significantly. I can’t say that I am surprised, however. Disappointed, yes.

The reality is that CAN-SPAM has failed miserably. It’s not just that it’s failed to put a dent in the spam problem. It’s needlessly complicated the lives of legitimate email marketers.

MarketingSherpa, in a recent article, brought to light another CAN-SPAM compliance headache — an often overlooked requirement within the legislation called “Do Not Email.” A simple opt-out is not sufficient. You have to provide an opt-out to ALL promotional mail that you might EVER send to that email list from ANY email address or staffer ever again. This could be a major problem for marketers because a lot of times email addresses are kept in separate data silos (e.g. prospect lists, distributor lists, affiliate lists, lists that might be rented from list houses, address books, etc.). Ugh!

It’s time to ditch this watered-down law that doesn’t work and start again — replacing it with a law that has some real teeth.