There is a lot of confusion over what exactly qualifies as "legitimate interest" under GDPR. Additionally, you may be wondering whether GDPR governs the handling of personal data which you collected before GDPR went into effect and, if so, whether you can keep it under the legitimate interest test. The answer is both 'yes' and 'no'. Below we talk about the legitimate interest test generally, and how it applies to data acquired before GDPR went into effect. We also include information about how to obtain the model legitimate interest assessment (LIA) template which has been developed by a GDPR expert and which we have been given permission to share.
You should never send mass or bulk email through a new IP address before you warm up that new IP address. Warming up an IP address is a critical step towards not only having good deliverability, but also to making sure that your email isn't tagged as spam, or blocked. To illustrate the importance of warming up an IP address, we're going to tell you a story.
Yesterday afternoon (8/24/23) a Federal court judge handed the Republican National Committee its head on a platter. As you may recall the RNC had sued Google, claiming that Google's spam filtering algorithm was intentionally anti-Republican. Google then countered by offering a pilot program to any political campaign that would adhere to Google's best practices for email - a spam-filter offramp, if you will - in other words they would not even have to have their email run through certain spam filters.
There is a hidden legal danger in not confirming email addresses, and yes, even in the United States. We talk a lot about email deliverability (because hey, we're the original email deliverability service). And in that context we always explain how using double opt-in (i.e. confirmed opt-in) helps immensely with deliverability by reducing spam complaints and increasing interaction rates. But now we're going to talk about something that people rarely think about: not confirming someone's email address before you use it or add it to a mailing list can have serious legal consequences for you having nothing to do with CAN-SPAM, GDPR, CASL or any email-specific law. It can also have serious consequences for others, consequences that in turn can come back to you in serious, unexpected, but entirely avoidable, legal ways.
Not confirming email addresses can put your customer in physical danger, and can cause you legal liability if they are harmed. We've written before about how not confirming email addresses can potentially create real-world, real legal liability, because in certain settings, and particulately in ecommerce, it can actually lead to your customer suffering physical harm; maybe even death.
The email industry is abuzz today with the news that Validity (nee Return Path) is about to start charging for access to the feedback loops (FBLs) which they have carefully cultivated and curated for years. This week their customers received one of two letters indicating that Validity was going to start charging for access to their Universal Feedback Loop.
We are often asked how we can be so much lower cost an alternative to Validity, and it's because we do things like giving you email deliverability check information that you can do yourself to improve email deliverability, instead of charging you a bunch to do it for you. Actually today we're going to give you two email deliverability self-help tips. One of these is actually super-easy and seems obvious, yet we regularly get a surprised look from customers when we ask them whether they have done it already.
Think the FTC and DOJ won't come after you if you violate CAN-SPAM? Think again. Experian's ConsumerInfo.com just got a rude awakening: you actually do have to comply with CAN-SPAM, or the FTC and DOJ will come after you - and win.
You may have heard of Charlie Javice and her now-defunct company Frank, as they have been in the news a lot lately. But in case you haven't heard of Charlie Javice, she, through her company Frank, it is alleged, conspired to fleece J.P. Morgan Chase (JPMC) out of millions of dollars by perpetrating a fraud whereby they fabricated a user list of millions of people, including email addresses, and then used that to entice JPMC to acquire them. Here's how they did it, what happened next, and how they were brought down and are now facing criminal charges.
Here's one way to tell transactional email vs marketing email: have a court slap you for putting what it says is advertising or marketing content in your opt-in confirmation email. This court decision happened inside the EU, however it is also a cautionary tale for anyone in the U.S., or Canada, or really anywhere that has national email marketing laws.