Stay out of trouble with the California no-UCE law.

California bans all spam e-mail. California took a tough stand against spam e-mail on Wednesday after Governor Gray Davis signed a law prohibiting anyone from sending unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisements to a California e-mail address. [InfoWorld: Top News]

Read the article. This law requires opt-in and opt-out. Best to be on the safe side and only add someone to your opt-in list if you have documentation: name, email address, IP address at a minimum. Be sure you put an explicit opt-out address at the bottom of each email and attend to your opt-outs on a daily basis if not "as occurring." The reason for this, of course, is that people forget who they opted in with and if the Attorney General comes calling you want to be able to show that you are running right and are not spamming.

I used to send a follow-up email to people who contacted me by phone, but I recently changed my process in anticipation of more of these laws. Now I give them, on the phone, a URL where they can go for details of my offer and where they are invited to opt in. I get the IP addresses out of the log.

If I can get any more details, I will post them here. I am not a lawyer, of course, so you will want to check all of this out with your attorney. Don't rely on my advice -- these are just ideas for you to consider and to get competent counsel on.

8:56:37 PM