CAN SPAM Act of 2003 Statement

December 31, 2003

Hello Everyone,

As you are all probably aware, the Federal (US) CAN SPAM Act of 2003 is going into effect January 1, 2004. Before we begin the New year, we at Investor Performance want to make sure you are all aware of it’s implications, as well as to give you a summary of what it all means going forward with Investor Performance.

This law will affect both Advertisers and Publishers, as this Act supercedes all other state and local laws effective January 1, 2004. Investor Performance strongly recommends that you review this law with your legal advisors to ensure that your firm is in full compliance of the law. The law is available online here.

For Publishers that work with Investor Performance, this means the following:

  1. E-Mail headers must not be forged in any way. The e-mail addresses used in the “From” and “Reply-To” headers must contain valid addresses, and must be from a system that you control. These addresses must accept all bounces and returned mail. Not abiding by these specific terms can have serious implications on your firm as well as officers of the firm, which include incarceration, so it is very important that you observe these regulations.
  2. A valid, physical postal address must be included in all advertising emails sent by your firm.
  3. The e-mail address you send “from” must accept all bounce and reply mail.
  4. Ad copy supplied by Investor Performance to you must not be modified in any way without written consent from Investor Performance. We want to ensure that no edits of the copy could be construed as misleading as per the new federal law before the campaign is sent. This includes “From” lines, “Subject” lines and copy included in the body of the e-mail.
  5. E-mail you send must include a working link for removal requests, and those requests must be honored.
  6. Unless you can prove every subscriber has opted in, you must state somewhere in the message that all commercial mail is an advertisement.
  7. For all Investor Performance business, your firm is responsible for the actions of any and all marketing partners, agents or others that you hire outside of your organization to complete contracts for us. Your firm must ensure that they also follow this new Federal Law.
  8. Investor Performance may provide suppression (opt-out) lists of e-mail addresses that must be excluded for sending, for individual advertisers. Because the law may consider the advertiser a sender as well, they may be responsible for removing people from receiving their offers.
  9. Although most of this information is already included in our contracts or legal addendums, you will all be receiving new legal amendments to our current working terms. These must be returned to Investor Performance within the first two weeks of January.

For Advertisers this means:

Your firm may be considered the “sender” as the law is written and it is not entirely clear. There are some steps that may be taken to prevent this confusion, and from unintentionally violating the law.

  1. Include your physical street address as part of your ad copy.
  2. Include a functional link for people to remove themselves from receiving your offers via email. Use these names to create a suppression (opt-out) list of names and e-mail addresses for which e-mail is not to be sent, so that Investor Performance can supply this to publishers. This is to ensure that if you are considered the “sender” by the courts in any legal action, the e-mail address will be opted out as per the law.
  3. Include wording with your ad copy indicating that it is an advertisement.
  4. Investor Performance strongly suggests you have your advertising materials reviewed by a lawyer who deals with misleading advertising law. Please note that Investor Performance reserves the right to refuse any ad it does not believe to be in compliance with the CAN SPAM Act of 2003 (in addition to other criteria already included in our legal agreements and addenda).

An example of what we recommend is a clickable text image that links to an Advertiser opt-out/suppression list mechanism below your advertisement. This is an example of such text:

You received this email because you requested information from Scotia Prince Cruises.
If you do not want to communicate via email please click here
............................................................................................................................

As someone who has sailed with us in the past or expressed an interest in Scotia Prince Cruises we are inviting you to become a member of our Captain's Club.
By becoming a Captain's Club member you will receive email notices of discounted sailing dates, great vacation options and new for this year, cruise auctions. Also, by joining the Captain's Club you will be included in a drawing to win one of 10 free cruises. To visit our website, please visit www.ScotiaPrince.com.
We want you to know we respect your privacy and are presently seeking your permission to serve you as efficiently as possible by e-mail. If you do not wish to receive any further messages from Scotia Prince Cruises, please click here to unsubscribe.
Scotia Prince Cruises
468 Commercial Street
Portland, ME 04101

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The following message was sent to you by Investor Performance
Investor Performance has been given the right to email you special
promotions via your membership with us and / or our marketing partners
and affiliates. If you feel that you are receiving this email in error or would
like to opt-out of receiving future offers please follow the removal
instructions below:
Please click here to be removed from our list:
http://www.upsidealert.com/off/htm
To unsubscribe by postal mail, please send your request to:
Investor Performance LLC
3333 South Congress Avenue, Suite 303
Delray Beach, FL 33445

Attn: Fulfillment Department

Or to unsubscribe via email, please include remove in the subject line
and send your request to this reply email:
http://www.upsidealert.com/off/htm
Our objective is to only communicate with audiences who would like to hear
from us and take advantage of our offers. Investor Performance is not
responsible for third party offers, services or products and makes no
representations or warranties regarding them. For our Privacy Policy:
click here
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This method is only a suggestion, however, we will most likely mandate advertisers include when working with us. To ensure that you are fully compliant with the law, please review the law with your advisors.

Overall, the new federal law may raise some challenges for everyone, but it does provide a legal framework in which we can all operate. Therefore, we encourage everyone to embrace this new legislation as we move into the New Year so we can all continue to prosper into the future.

If you have any questions, or have some additional insight you would like discuss, feel free to contact me.

Have a Happy New Year,

Alex Radetich
Managing Partner
Investor Performance LLC
Direct: (561) 819-5555, ext. 112
alex@upsidealert.com