Federal CAN SPAM Act of 2003

The Federal CAN SPAM Act of 2003 specifically allows transactional e-mails such as reservation confirmations and receipts. There are also no restrictions against sending e-mail to your list of customers or prospects provided the e-mail message includes the name and physical address of the sender and an �opt out� link. MyFBO.com keeps you in compliance with these legal requirements. 

• MyFBO.com includes an opt out link on all broadcast emails that are sent from your MyFBO.com system. If clicked by a customer, this link will stop all broadcast e-mail messages from you to that customer.
• MyFBO.com includes an opt out option on all other types of e-mails that are sent from your MyFBO.com system, allowing the customer to stop specific types of e-mail messages. 

Once a customer has used the opt out link, a flag is set in the customer record so e-mail will no longer be sent. Customers who log in to your online system can also set their own e-mail preferences from their Profile Tab / Contact Information Menu. Staff can also change the settings if a customer requests not to receive e-mail. The e-mail settings for a customer can be reviewed by putting the customer in focus, then selecting View /Update, followed by clicking the General Information option. The e-mail flags are under the E-mail Preferences section, as shown below. 

E-mail Flags

Avoided Domains

Some e-mail service providers allow their users to flag e-mail messages as SPAM. If there are a sufficient number of flags, the sending e-mail server is �blacklisted,� and all future e-mail is rejected. There is nothing to prevent your customers who receive an e-mail � even a reservation confirmation message that they requested � from flagging that message as SPAM. Unfortunately, some do. 

AOL, Hotmail, MSN, Microsoft, and Windows Live all allow mailbox users to mark messages as SPAM and then use that data to blacklist e-mail senders. Therefore, it is important to be very selective in what e-mail is sent to those addresses to avoid MyFBO.com e-mail servers being blacklisted. Otherwise, your users with those e-mail accounts run the risk of not having the opportunity to receive ANY e-mail from your MyFBO.com system at all. 
 

Steps taken by MyFBO.com to help control the number of e-mails sent to the avoided domains (AOL, Hotmail, MSN, Microsoft, and Windows Live) include:

• The checkboxes to send confirmation e-mails for reservations are not automatically checked when the e-mail address on file is from one of the avoided domains. Instead, the e-mail address will be shown so you are aware of the issue, and staff will need to check the box only if the customer wishes to receive the confirmation by e-mail.
• The checkboxes to send receipts by e-mail are not automatically checked when the e-mail address on file is from one of the avoided domains. Instead, the e-mail address will be shown so you are aware of the issue, and staff will need to check the box only if the customer wishes to receive the receipt by e-mail.
• E-mails that are sent as a result of reservation confirmation, reservation change, reservation cancellation, or receipt completion used to go out as one e-mail to the customer with "copies" to staff, mentor, and aircraft e-mail addresses. These e-mails now go out as two separate e-mails. The customer e-mail has the special opt out phrase added to it, and for customers using one of the "avoided domains" there is an additional phrase added asking them to please not mark the e-mail as spam. 
• For e-mail addresses in the avoided domains, we have added �Please do not mark this message as spam in your e-mail program� to the e-mail content.
• System generated Birthday Greetings (an option found in the Customer/Member Parameters) are not e-mailed to the avoided domains.

You may want to encourage your customers not to use services from the avoided domains. To date, Google�s Gmail has proven the most reliable of the free e-mail services.

List Customer E-mail Issues

There is a List Customer E-mail Issues report available from Manage Tab / Customer Reports (and from the Broadcast E-mail menu) that includes information about any customer who will not receive e-mails for one of the following reasons: 

• Avoided Domain

  AOL, Hotmail, MSN, Microsoft, or Windows Live. Currently applies only to Birthday Greetings and situations listed above.

• E-mail Address Marked as Bad

  E-mail address has been flagged as bad/invalid in the customer record.

• Requested No Broadcast E-mail

  Per customer opt out.

• Requested No E-mail Contact

  Per customer opt out.

09/13/12 cli