Bronto Blog

Here’s a harsh reminder to MySpace, and probably many others out there, that you need to review your subscribe and unsubscribe processes. Today I received an email from MySpace.com. It looks like they’ve cleaned up their newsletter a bit so it shows something with images off — great news.

Of course the downside is that it’s been over a year since they emailed me. Definitely a bad move, just ask DJ.

So I scrolled to the bottom, and it looks like pretty clear messaging on how to remove yourself from this mailing. I’m actually encouraged by the fact that they offer a link to a preference center. It’s always in your best interest to offer a way to manage preferences and update info over just having a link for people to unsubscribe themselves. So I decided to check out their preference center, and I clicked the link.

See what happened after the click

Last week, the FTC approved several new rule provisions under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. Read the press release or download the full article (PDF). If you don’t have time to sort through the comments and legalese, below is a brief overview.

These new provisions were included largely to clarify the meanings of and intents of existing rules, so not too much has changed. There were a few clarifications that dealt more with the technicalities of the Act; however, there are two main changes to concentrate on. One of the biggest additions was an augmentation to ensure that subscribers could easily remove themselves from your list, which we’ve paraphrased here:

“…an e-mail recipient cannot be required to…take any steps other than sending a reply e-mail message..

This means even more diligence is required when managing replies. You, as the sender, must include a valid reply-to address and read/respond to replies often. Also, avoid reply-to’s such as “donotreply@” or “noreply@”. It is essential to honor unsubscribe requests when subscribers ask to be removed via replying to your email. Additionally, avoid the dreaded “DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL.” For more details, read the BrontoFire episode, “Don’t Hide That Unsubscribe” (look under the TurboTax section).

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