ISIPP News: Utah Child Protection Email Address Registry
UTAH OPENS CHILD EMAIL ADDRESS REGISTRY FOR BUSINESS, ALL COMMERCIAL
EMAILERS MUST COMPLY BY AUGUST 15th
"Both Michigan and Utah Registries Now in Full Swing, Noncompliant
Commercial Emailers at Risk," warns ISIPP
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - July 18, 2005 - The Institute for Spam and
Internet Public Policy (ISIPP) is warning that all commercial email
senders are now required to either comply with the child protection
email address registries and registry laws of both Michigan and Utah,
or risk penalties which can include prison and fines running to the
thousands of dollars.
"It doesn't matter what you think of these new laws," explained Anne
P. Mitchell, President and CEO of the Institute and a Professor of
Internet Law at Lincoln Law School of San Jose, "they are both in
effect right now. Like them or not, they are real, they are out
there, and they'll get you. Michigan's law went into effect two weeks
ago, and Utah's became effective on July 15th. Both registries are
now fully operational and accepting email addresses, and if you send
unpermitted email to an address on either registry, you'll get
nailed."
"Michigan is going to start enforcing their law against email senders
in less than two weeks," Mitchell emphasized.
The new Michigan and Utah "Child Protection Registry" laws were both
passed last year, but under the terms of the laws each state had a
year to put the process in place and get the registries up and
running. Individuals may place on the registries any email address
"to which a minor may have access". Schools and other organizations
which provide services to children may also register entire Internet
domains. Both laws are controversial, and Mitchell says that there is
a lot of misinformation swirling around the two laws.
"We're seeing three big areas of misconception," said Mitchell.
"First, email senders think that the laws don't apply to them because
they don't send spam. But these laws are not at all about spam, they
are about content which is unpermitted for minors, even if the email
is requested. Even if the email is paid for!"
"We're seeing three big areas of misconception," said Mitchell.
"First, email senders think that the laws don't apply to them because
they don't send spam. But these laws are not at all about spam, they
are about content which is unpermitted for minors, even if the email
is requested. Even if the email is paid for!"
"We're seeing three big areas of misconception," said Mitchell.
"First, email senders think that the laws don't apply to them because
they don't send spam. But these laws are not at all about spam, they
are about content which is unpermitted for minors, even if the email
is requested. Even if the email is paid for!"
Once an email address is on one of the registries, commercial emailers
are prohibited from sending it anything containing advertising, or
even just linking to advertising, for a product or service that a
minor is otherwise legally prohibited from accessing, such as alcohol,
tobacco, gambling, prescription drugs, or adult-rated material. In
order to ensure that they don't send unpermitted material to any email
address on one of the registries, email senders are required to match
their mailing lists against the registries on a monthly basis, for
which they must pay both Michigan and Utah a per-email-address fee.
In addition to state attorneys general, individual citizens and ISPs
may both bring lawsuits against email senders whom they believe to
have violated either law.
"We can't emphasize enough how seriously commercial email senders
should take these laws," added Mitchell. "At the very least, senders
need to make sure that their choice as to whether to comply or not is
an informed, educated decision. The penalties for non-compliance with
these laws can be very serious."
The Institute conducted a teleseminar dealing with the new child
protection registry laws last week, in an effort to help email
marketers and other commercial email senders understand what they need
to do in order to avoid running afoul of the new laws. According to
ISIPP the seminar was very well attended, and participants had a lot
of questions about the new laws.
An audio recording and written transcript of the seminar, along with
seminar materials, is available at the ISIPP website at
http://www.isipp.com.
ISIPP has also updated their Email Sender Accreditation program (the
IADB) so that senders who choose to do so can identify themselves as
complying with the new Michigan and Utah laws. ISIPP's IADB allows
receiving email systems to check on an email sender's credentials in
real time including, now, whether they are complying with the new
Child Protection Registry laws. Dozens of ISPs and spam filters,
representing more than 400million inboxes, use the IADB's data to help
make email processing and delivery decisions.
Email senders interested in ordering the audio and written transcript
of ISIPP's July 7th teleseminar on "Child Protection Email Address
Registry Compliance" can do so at http://www.isipp.com.
Information about ISIPP's IADB Email Senders Accreditation Program,
which includes Child Protection Registry compliance notification, is
available at http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php.
The Utah Child Protection Registry is at
https://www.utahkidsregistry.com.
The Michigan Child Protection Registry is at
https://www.protectmichild.com.
