Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On August 14, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission announced a proposed order against Experian Consumer Services (“Experian”) for failure to comply with the federal CAN-SPAM Act.  The complaint alleges that Experian sent marketing emails that did not provide an unsubscribe opportunity to consumers who had signed up for Experian’s credit monitoring services. The CAN-SPAM Act requires businesses to, in relevant part, clearly and conspicuously display a return email address or Internet-based mechanism that allows consumers to unsubscribe from future marketing emails. While the Experian emails contained a notice stating that the messages related to the consumer’s Experian account (which would make them “transactional” or “relationship” messages under the CAN-SPAM Act, and therefore exempt from the unsubscribe requirement), the complaint alleged that, in actuality, the emails contained only marketing material.

On February 12, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission announced the completion of the first regulatory review of the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (“CAN-SPAM”) Rule (the “CAN-SPAM Rule” or “Rule”). By a vote of 5-0, the FTC voted to retain the CAN-SPAM rule with no modifications.