With little fanfare, this month the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opened up a request for comments regarding our Federal anti-spam law, known as CAN-SPAM. For those who are not aware, the U.S. is the only first-world country that has not outlawed the practice of adding someone to a mailing list without first obtaining their express permission.

Four new rules have been issued by the Federal Trade Commission which augment and amend the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. These four new rules amending the CAN SPAM Act take effect this month (June, 2008), and affect all senders of commercial email who have an email list of any size. Here’s what the new CANSPAM Act rules are.

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, which is the new Federal anti-spam law, only applies to commercial email. It does not apply to the private, personal email which you send