Since the federal CAN-SPAM Act and California’s anti-spam law (CASL) were passed in 2003, the world of email spam law has significantly changed. There have been multiple shifts in the laws, including a move toward litigating under the California statute rather than the federal statute. In his article “Defending Against Spam Shakedowns,” published in the Daily Journal, Partner Karl Kronenberger outlines the legal definition and categories of unlawful spam emails, as well as how the law has been changing to the benefit of spam defendants.
Karl also discusses an array of strategies for advertisers and email publishers to use in their email campaigns to reduce the risk of spam liability, such as developing compliance programs to ensure that email publishers have permission to use their domain names; carefully choosing the “from” name; listing contingencies in the body of the email; and complying with the basic requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act.