August 2004
We are back!
It has been many moons since the CRS Newsletter graced your screens. We were stonewalled by anti-spam software, including being blacklisted by our own server! It became very difficult to overcome all the barriers out there, despite the fact that ours was a legitimate opt-in newsletter.
So, I retreated and subscribed to a few how-to-run-your-own-internet-marketing-business type newsletters to find out how they managed to get their newsletters through to me. In the process, I learnt a lot, and our resurrected newsletter is in a completely new style and format. I hope you like it. If you wish, you may unsubscribe as indicated elsewhere in this newsletter.
We have now acquired state-of-the-art email marketing software to handle our newsletter more efficiently and to overcome the problems that we encountered previously. Do not worry, we will not spam you. If you are receiving this, then you had subscribed to us at some point.
Anti-Spam Legislation
If you are like me, you get tons of unwanted junk mail every day. There is a variety of software (many are marketed through spam, ironically) that can effectively manage this for you. I have been using Outlook 2003 and I’m very impressed at how this filters junk mail. I have not found a single valid email filtered out by mistake yet.
Did you know that there are now US laws regulating commercial mailings? Amongst other things, newsletters must have a working opt-out link in each email. Each unsubscribe request must be suppressed from future mailings and the address must be removed from the mailing list within 10 business days. So, in theory, you should be able to get rid off unwanted mailings by simply unsubscribing from them.
This is an excellent analysis of the legislation in PDF: http://www.customerparadigm.com/can-spam/can-spam-act.pdf
Getting caught breaking the law can result in a jail sentence in the USA. I wonder how that will stop the European junk mail! It is still best to avoid displaying your email address out there on a website or to enter it into any web based database. Difficult, I know, in this age of global communication.
I do promise that I will do my best to comply with these laws even though I am not governed by them as I live in Trinidad & Tobago.
Tell Us What You Think
We would love to hear what you think of this issue of CRS News. And of course, if you have any suggestions for upcoming issues that you would like to share with us, please send those, too!