While cold-emailing is allowed in the USA, several email-related advertisement undertakings are unethical and illegal. Using email as a marketing strategy requires users to adhere to strict restrictions about dealing with the target audience. The different restrictions related to email marketing are prohibition from buying or selling email addresses, the need to use authentic headlines that do not mislead and avoiding false headers. Most importantly, there is a need to provide users with the option to opt-out.
The CAN-SPAM Act establishes standards that premises must adhere to when using email to send commercial messages. Whether advertisements are business to business or business to individuals, the law requires compliance ( Kigerl, 2009) . Other aspects covered by this legislation is the need for firms to disclose their location, tell the email recipient that the message is an ad, and ensure follow up of what other individuals are doing on behalf of the business. An example is outsourcing advertising undertakings to another entity. The company that outsources its tasks has an obligation to ensure the third party complies with the law. Each individual email that does not comply with such stipulations could attract penalties of up to $16000 ( Yu, 2011). Besides the fine, other consequences are losing customers because of pursuing strategies that could be viewed as dubious by potential customers. This negatively affects their trust and hence, loyalty to a given brand or entity. The advertising agency could also be fined for such a tort.
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I feel email advertisements that do not comply with the CAN-SPAM act are unethical because they could also fall under misleading advertisements. Entities have a moral obligation to be honest in their dealings to ensure customers are not manipulated. Most importantly, they are illegal because the law prohibits such undertakings. Entities must do what is necessary to avoid tarnishing their image, hence losing customers.
References
Kigerl, A. C. (2009). CAN SPAM Act: An Empirical analysis. International Journal of Cyber Criminology , 3 (2).
Yu, S. (2011). Email spam and the CAN-SPAM Act: A qualitative analysis. International Journal of Cyber Criminology , 5 (1), 715.
