If you have ever received SPAM e-mail, or junk e-mail, from businesses that you have never had an affiliation with, then you may have been subject to unsolicited commercial e-mailing. In Michigan, the Unsolicited Commercial E-mail Protection Act protects against this type of e-mail solicitation by requiring the sender to include certain notices and options for the receiver (you). A few of these are (i) clear statement of advertisement, (ii) valid contact information, and (iii) an option to ‘opt out’. (see MCL 445.2501 et. seq.)
Clear statement of advertisement requires unsolicited commercial e-mails to contain a subject line indicating that they are indeed an advertisement. The Act states that the sender must include “ADV:” as the first four characters of the e-mail’s subject line. This allows you to clearly discern that the e-mail you are receiving is of a commercial basis, and may regard it as “junk”.
Valid contact information must be established, as this allows the receiver to contact the sender regarding any information being distributed. It is required that the sender has a valid toll-free telephone number, e-mail, and return mailing address thus allowing access for the receiver to cancel contact from the sender.
Option to opt out allows the receiver to be removed from any future contact by the sender. The provided means of contact must be at no cost to the receiver, as well as no cost to be removed from their e-mail list. For example, they cannot have a cancellation fee, since you were never asking to receive their information. Additionally, this option must not be hidden in fine print, and must be conspicuous to the receiver.
Be careful! Just because you view an e-mail to be unsolicited commercial “junk”, does not mean it falls under this act. Any time that you voluntarily give your e-mail to a company they are able to send you promotional advertising, and may not need to follow the required guidelines listed above. Due to an existing relationship between you and said business, they are not necessarily bound by this act. If you have ever signed up to receive more information from a company, business, store, etc. then you have established that you have a relationship with that entity, thus all information sent via e-mail would not be considered to be “unsolicited”.
Further, federal law CAN-SPAM (Chapter 103 of 15 U.S.C.) provides individuals and businesses a federal cause of action, and generally preempts state law on this subject matter.
