Commercial Email Advertisements Using Both Proxy/Privately Registered Domains And Generic From Lines Deemed Unlawful

The California appellate court's decision in Balsam v. Trancos requires marketers nationwide using commercial email advertisements to include in the from line of each email a domain name that is registered to the sender which can be determined by performing a WHOIS look-up, or the name of the sender or marketer on whose behalf the email was sent. Therefore, under this ruling, marketers – and the companies they hire including affiliate networks – can no longer send commercial email that contains both a generic from line and is sent from a proxy/privately registered domain name. Marketers nationwide must take immediate action to ensure compliance with this latest development in anti-spam law.