Commercial email
Under anti-spam laws, a message whose purpose is to promote a product, service or business opportunity. Such messages carry the consent, identification and opt-out duties.
What it means
CAN-SPAM covers commercial electronic mail messages, whose primary purpose is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a product or service. When a message mixes commercial and transactional content, the FTC treats it as commercial if the subject line would lead the recipient to think so, or if the transactional part does not come first.
Canada's CASL uses the term commercial electronic message (CEM), covering messages that encourage participation in a commercial activity, and requires consent, identification of the sender and an unsubscribe mechanism in each.
The EU's ePrivacy rules speak of electronic mail for direct marketing. The labels differ, but in each law the purpose of the message, not the tool that sent it, decides whether the rules apply.
Related terms
Sources
What this definition rests on. The wording is ours; the facts are theirs.
- FTC: CAN-SPAM Act, a compliance guide for businessftc.gov
- Justice Laws Website: Canada's anti-spam legislation (S.C. 2010, c. 23)laws-lois.justice.gc.ca
- EUR-Lex: Directive 2002/58/EC (ePrivacy), consolidated texteur-lex.europa.eu
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