Avoid Can Spam Act

[ekal]

I'd like to send an email to the local tourist information bureaus advertising a new local site, but don't want to get them all to opt in. I'd like go their websites, take an email address from their site and give them an easy unsubscribe option if they don't want any follow ups.

To avoid the Can Spam Act, I've seen people place a disclaimer at the bottom of the newsletter, saying something to the effect that:

"This email does not infringe the Can Spam Act because we did not use a machine to harvest your email but researched your details and thought you would be interested in our product because you are in a directly related business."

Does anyone know:
1) is this really legal?
2) if so, what would the correct / best wording be?

 

[Dave_Z]

Unless you're willing to risk it, don't.

Whoever did that is potentially asking for trouble, especially if they're based in
the US.

Besides, there's a chance at least one of those you're targetting might be real
smart enough to report your IP address to one of those blackhole lists and get
you blocked up real good.

Put yourself in your place: would you appreciate receiving an unsolicited email
like that? I certainly wouldn't.

There's a right way and a wrong way to do things. Do it wrong and it can do
more harm than good.

 

[globefrog]

I have often thought about what ekal is saying, what suggestions / alternatives are there? Hardcopy addressed mail is an alternative but resource consumer.

 

[ekal]

Thats what I'll do if I can't find a workaround. Design a newsletter and email to people one-by-one.

 

[CodeName_88]

Yep, a newsletter would probably be the best workaround. If the method you first mentioned would work, then every spammer would stick that to the bottom of his message, saying that it is legal while it's not.

 

[Ronald Regging]

There are marketing services out there that operate massive opt-in lists and claim to be able to generate email lists based on specific criteria. Since you'd be paying to use this list and would be an authorized third-party to their opt-in program, it should be perfectly legal and not considered spam. Then again, people sign up for a lot of crap without reading the fine print, probably don't know they're opting-in and will essentially be just as pissed...

Does anyone have any experience using this type of service for email campaigns?

 

[globefrog]

Ive used a similar service via fax here in Australia that was fairly successful but charged at $0.50c per contact (the fax charge included) So bulk was costly. I havent used an email one but have heard of low response rates from their use. A friend of mine used one and while it may have been legal, it was very unfruitful.