Physical postal address
CAN-SPAM's requirement that every commercial email include the sender's valid physical postal address: a street address, a registered PO box or a registered private mailbox.
What it means
The FTC's guide says commercial messages must include your valid physical postal address. That can be your current street address, a post office box registered with the US Postal Service, or a private mailbox registered with a commercial mail receiving agency under Postal Service rules.
Other laws ask for similar identification in their own terms. CASL requires a commercial electronic message to identify the sender and give contact information valid for at least 60 days after sending. The EU ePrivacy Directive prohibits marketing email that disguises or conceals the sender's identity or lacks a valid address for opt-out requests.
The address normally sits in the footer next to the unsubscribe link.
Related terms
On this site
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
All 432 terms in the glossaryThe wiki: blocklists and bounce codes