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Email has long been viewed as a #marketing activity with less #compliance risk, but that may be changing. In this episode of Compliance Pointers, Frank Nolan, a partner at Eversheds Sutherland, explains what’s driving an increase in email compliance litigation. Watch the complete episode to learn:
📧 How a California email law creates more risk than CAN-SPAM and is being used to fuel new class action lawsuits
📧 How Gmail ads and “converted” emails are becoming a novel litigation target
📧 Email mistakes that can land a business in trouble
📧 Best practices to reduce risk
#EmailMarketing #CANSPAM
Learn more about Eversheds Sutherland: https://www.eversheds-sutherland.com/en/united-states
Learn more about Frank: https://www.eversheds-sutherland.com/en/united-states/people/nolan-francis
Learn more about CompliancePoint's Marketing Compliance Services at: https://www.compliancepoint.com/services/marketing-compliance/
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رونوشت 🔗
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Welcome to Compliance Pointers, where we take
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an in -depth look into the latest news, trends,
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and challenges surrounding information security,
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privacy, and marketing compliance. Here is your
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host, Matt Cagle. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the
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latest episode of Compliance Pointers. My name
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is Matt Cagle. I'm with Compliance Point. This
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is the next episode in our Ask an Attorney series,
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and I'm thrilled to have an old friend and colleague,
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Frank Nolan, here with us today. Frank is with
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Evershed Sutherland. We have worked with Frank,
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gosh, Frank, at this point, I don't know, eight
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or nine years, maybe more than we want to admit,
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on a variety of issues, whether that's TCPA -related
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work, some data privacy stuff. Frank and his
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team at Eversheds are someone we would highly
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recommend. So as Frank and I were thinking about
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what would be a good topic for today's conversation,
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he mentioned that email compliance of all things
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is something that is rising up in terms of risk
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area, potential priority for organizations to
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address historically. frank we have not seen
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a lot of enforcement activity around email particularly
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under canned spam at the federal level or with
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the state attorneys general i'm curious what
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what is um driving this increase sure and thanks
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for having me matt it's good to speak with you
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again um so i'm a litigator so our team handles
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compliance uh requests from clients time to time
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from time to time Because we're familiar with
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a lot of these statutes that give rise to private
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litigation. So we're always looking at things
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from that lens. And the reason that I brought
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up this topic is because for the first time in
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my career, we're seeing litigation arising from,
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effectively, allegations of spam emailing. Now,
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that's something that I've never seen before,
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largely because the federal Can Spam Act doesn't
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provide for... private right of action. So it's
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enforced by the FTC. It's not actionable by private
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litigants, and there's no damages provision for
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private. litigants the way that there is you
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mentioned the tcpa i think one thing congress
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was trying to do when it enacted the can spam
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act was avoid what we see with the tcpa which
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is just this onslaught of private litigation
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that costs companies millions and millions of
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dollars a year for settlements and things of
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that nature so can spam is not an area that we
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saw litigation so I was a little surprised to
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see a little flurry, so far a flurry, of activity
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relating to a California anti -email spam law.
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There's a couple of these laws in the books.
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The one in California has been around since 2003.
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It's similar to the CanSpam Act, except obviously
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it's a state law. It's got a couple of key differences,
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which is why... I took note of it, and that is
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the primary one is that it's enforceable through
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civil litigation. So plaintiffs lawyers have
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started to very early stages to key on this law
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to file class action lawsuits or to send pre
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litigation demand letters trying to get a quick
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payday from the letters are basically designed
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for that. And now they're taking a run at class
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action. complaints to see if there's any traction
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there to take advantage of the liquidated damages
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provision in the California law, which is a thousand
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dollars per each unsolicited offending email,
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as well as attorney's fees and costs. So you
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could, the numbers can, you can imagine a company
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sends a lot of emails out through a marketing
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campaign. They get tagged with one of these,
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the numbers can get astronomical quickly. Well,
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I think. and this is why we wanted to talk about
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this we've we've worked with companies for decades
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at this point when it comes to their direct marketing
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activities and whenever they've brought up email
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we've always said hey it's follow can spam it's
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pretty straightforward uh if you're not selling
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fake rolexes or doing something Very questionable.
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It's unlikely that you'll see enforcement activity
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around this. Obviously, honor those consumer
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preferences, honor the opt -outs, but follow
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the intent of the law when it comes to canned
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spam. And you should be good. Focus on the TCPA,
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some of those higher risk areas. In my mind,
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and I'm curious if you agree, this changes the
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risk paradigm related to email activity. at least
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in the short term, somewhat significantly, if
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it is subject to private right of action, potentially
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those class actions, like you said. Yeah, it
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could. I mean, we're still so early in, I guess,
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what you might call like the trial balloon phase
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of plaintiff's lawyers taking a run at seeing
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how, whether these claims can survive. So if
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you go back maybe 10, 15 years, there's a few
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of these cases filed. They were uh not class
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actions and they weren't filed in the context
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that we're seeing them now so there's not really
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a body there's some case law out there about
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this california law but not much that's applicable
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to the theories that one particular plaintiff's
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firm maybe a couple others are taking a run at
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now so the the law this california law um it
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doesn't have a clever name like the can spam
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law or the tcps which is called the california
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law but it tries to prohibit three types of practices.
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The first is that emails that use a third party's
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domain name without the permission of that third
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party. So in other words, kind of masking the
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email address. That's not something that we're
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seeing yet as a theory. The theories that we're
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seeing are under the other two prohibitions under
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the law. So emails that contain false information
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in the from line. So there's no way for the recipient
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to identify who the advertiser is. So these are
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all commercial emails. So in the from line, and
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then the other is in the subject line, where
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if the subject line is likely misleading a reasonable
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recipient about a material fact regarding the
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contents or the subject matter of the message.
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So in other words, the subject line says something,
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it's pointing the recipient this way. The actual
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body of the email when you open it is saying
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something different, all in the context of marketing
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or advertising. So it's basically a deceptive
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practices act specific to emails that are being
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sent. And like CanSpam, it's enforceable by the
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government, but in this case, California Attorney
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General, and by email service providers. So CanSpam's
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also... can be enforced by that very narrow category
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of businesses. But unlike CanSpam, anybody who
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receives one of these emails who's in the state
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of California can bring an action, even if the
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defendant or the company that's sending these
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is not in California. Okay. So to kind of read
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that back to you, it sounds like you're not yet,
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and I don't want to speak for you necessarily,
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but you're not as convinced that this is going
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to be a successful long -term strategy for the
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plaintiff's attorneys that while there's risk
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in the short term and still a lot of unknowns
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that need to be settled like through likely through
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the courts um it's perhaps not the five alarm
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fire that some might be thinking it is i'll say
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this um we've got we've got one of these cases
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a couple couple more in the hopper that are pending
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a motion to dismiss and i'm bullish on our arguments
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So I think that these, the theory here, or the
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theories that I've seen so far with respect to
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my clients, I don't think they will stand up
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to scrutiny on the pleadings. Is that a guarantee?
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No, definitely not. And if we have some bad decisions,
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I mean, that happens. We've seen that in SEPA,
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some bad litigation with the wiretapping on websites.
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Decisions that I don't agree with. If we get
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some bad decisions in this, then who knows? And
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I think that's what the plaintiffs firms are
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kind of testing out to see if this could be what
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you call five alarm fire. Five alarm fire to
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us and our clients is a big payday to the plaintiffs
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bar. So I think we're kind of in that early stages
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of seeing whether these theories carry any water.
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One thing that plaintiffs, lawyers in the consumer
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protection space are very good at is adjusting
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on the fly. So they get a bad decision and they
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tweak their theory a little bit, try another
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angle. So even if we do get some good decisions
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here, I'm not expecting that to be the end of
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this theory. I'm just saying that as of now,
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this theory doesn't add up to me. And I think
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that courts will hopefully see it that way. But
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it's too early to tell for sure. Right. So companies
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need to be aware and thoughtful, but not panic.
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And that makes sense. And I would agree. So it
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sounds like you mentioned you're dealing with
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a few of these cases. What trends are you seeing
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in these claims or arguments? So I think maybe
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giving an example of how this works or one of
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these works might be helpful. So do you have
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a Gmail account? I do. I'm not going to give
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it out on here, given the popularity of this
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podcast, but I do have a Gmail account. Yeah,
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that's that's good. That's good. So most people
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have a Gmail account. If you go into your Gmail,
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let's say on your desk, start with your desktop
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and you see the three folders up there, you've
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got your inbox, you get your social promotions,
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maybe it's promotions and social. But there's
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a separate tab there for promotions on your home
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screen. All kinds of stuff goes in there. You
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probably don't check it very often. But if you
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do and open up that tab, you're going to see
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two things. You're going to see one, just emails.
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So from a subscription service that you might
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get. So if you subscribe to a food delivery service
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and they'll send you periodic updates on your
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account or deals that you might get as a subscriber.
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Interspersed with those emails is something a
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little bit different that when you first look
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at it. You might think or conflate the two things.
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The difference is that that email may say the
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name of the company and then right after it says
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sponsored. So what that is, that's an advertisement.
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If you click on that, it kind of looks like an
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email, but it isn't really an email because there's
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no sender. There's no way to respond to it. There's
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no time that it landed in your inbox. And then
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if you close out a Gmail. and then log back in
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a half an hour later it's probably gone whereas
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an actual email that you got from a company is
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still in your email inbox the reason that you
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get those emails that say sponsored on it is
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due to a number of things but it's basically
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driven by the goo and for example google's uh
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advertising algorithm so google knows everything
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about you matt as you probably know so it knows
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like your your general level of income and education
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whether you have kids so you know they may send
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you certain again i'll use the food service delivery
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example programs or subscriptions that you might
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find appealing given your demographic as a dad
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of four kids ages whatever to whatever you need
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some food delivery services because you're too
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busy to make dinner yeah on a tuesday night so
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that's why you're getting those ads but it is
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just an ad now here's where it gets a little
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different in the way that the reason that plaintiff's
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lawyers are triggering on this is because if
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you open that advertisement and it shows up as
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an advertisement there's an There's an icon on
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the top right of the advertisement. This is all
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within Gmail. You can click on it and you can
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have that converted to an email in your inbox.
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So basically, it's a way to save the advertisement.
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So as a consumer, you may want to, this ad looks
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really good to me. I may want to take advantage
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of this sale, for example. So you can save it
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to your inbox. When it saves to your inbox, then
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it becomes an email. or it looks like an email.
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It has a date on it. It has a to and a from line.
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You can respond to the email. And if you log
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out and log back in, it'll still be there. So
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what plaintiff's lawyers are doing is having
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their plaintiffs effectively go in there and
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create or convert that ad into an email and then
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turn around and sue the company that's advertising
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through Google and saying, you sent me an email.
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This is a spam email. Well, it's not quite that
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simple because it was solicited because you're
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actually, as a plaintiff, converting it from
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an advertisement into an email. So the argument
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is, our argument, is that this is not an email.
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This is an advertisement. And then when it became
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an email, it was not unsolicited because you,
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in effect, as the consumer or the plaintiff,
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took an action to invite the email into your
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inbox. that's one theory that we're seeing and
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the plaintiffs lawyers who have had very frank
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and honest discussions with about the you know
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what i think are the flaws in their theory are
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we're going to see we're going to see what the
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courts say we're going to we're going to play
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this out because it's worth it to the plaintiff's
00:14:42.700 --> 00:14:46.379
lawyers to invest their time because if if the
00:14:46.379 --> 00:14:50.639
court views this as an email then this is going
00:14:50.639 --> 00:14:54.909
to explode Every company that's advertising through
00:14:54.909 --> 00:14:58.190
Google that's sending ads to someone's Gmail
00:14:58.190 --> 00:15:01.389
account, which is pretty much most advertisements,
00:15:01.750 --> 00:15:05.710
could be subject to these claims as perverse
00:15:05.710 --> 00:15:08.629
as it sounds. And when you throw in $1 ,000 per
00:15:08.629 --> 00:15:12.529
email violation, God knows how many advertisements
00:15:12.529 --> 00:15:15.330
are going out. The numbers become so astronomical
00:15:15.330 --> 00:15:17.929
that it's worth it for the limited investment
00:15:17.929 --> 00:15:21.659
of plaintiff's lawyers now. Yeah. All right.
00:15:21.700 --> 00:15:24.879
So let me make sure I'm tracking this. Yeah.
00:15:25.279 --> 00:15:30.259
Under canned spam, you can email people until
00:15:30.259 --> 00:15:33.519
they unsubscribe. Yeah. Marketing emails or not.
00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:37.379
So in this case, even when I convert it to an
00:15:37.379 --> 00:15:41.899
email and you're arguing it's solicited because
00:15:41.899 --> 00:15:45.460
they converted it, I'm curious, is the solicitation
00:15:45.460 --> 00:15:48.159
component really key to the argument or is it
00:15:48.159 --> 00:15:51.769
more focused on? that's now an email once they
00:15:51.769 --> 00:15:54.190
convert it, and then are they pushing the issue
00:15:54.190 --> 00:15:56.789
with the misleading component? Does that make
00:15:56.789 --> 00:16:03.929
sense? Yeah, that's exactly right. So there's
00:16:03.929 --> 00:16:06.289
two aspects here. It's the solicited part, which
00:16:06.289 --> 00:16:08.110
is basically what I was just talking about, and
00:16:08.110 --> 00:16:12.090
then there's the false and misleading, either
00:16:12.090 --> 00:16:17.250
the subject line or the from line. Now, one theory
00:16:17.250 --> 00:16:20.649
that we've seen is... Some of these advertisements
00:16:20.649 --> 00:16:25.429
advertise price reductions. So this is our subscription
00:16:25.429 --> 00:16:27.889
or this is a product or service that we're providing
00:16:27.889 --> 00:16:32.570
at this discount. It was $29 .99. Now it's $19
00:16:32.570 --> 00:16:36.590
.99. And there are laws, including in California,
00:16:36.909 --> 00:16:41.710
that prohibit basically advertising or selling
00:16:41.710 --> 00:16:45.389
something as a discount off of an original price
00:16:45.389 --> 00:16:49.919
that was never actually posted. So in other words,
00:16:50.019 --> 00:16:53.460
they never actually sold something for $29 .99,
00:16:53.620 --> 00:16:55.940
so you can't go around and say this is discounted
00:16:55.940 --> 00:16:58.879
off of $29 .99. It's called a strikethrough pricing
00:16:58.879 --> 00:17:02.720
law. Now, some of these complaints are alleging
00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:06.400
that these emails are doing effectively the same
00:17:06.400 --> 00:17:08.660
thing, and it's a violation of the strikethrough
00:17:08.660 --> 00:17:12.119
law, therefore a violation of this email law.
00:17:12.339 --> 00:17:15.480
Now, they're doing that. without actually alleging
00:17:15.480 --> 00:17:17.200
a separate claim under the strikethrough law
00:17:17.200 --> 00:17:21.200
this is entirely cabin to this email spam law
00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:23.980
but it's the same theory as the strikethrough
00:17:23.980 --> 00:17:27.480
law which is a misleading theory it's a consumer
00:17:27.480 --> 00:17:31.940
uh deceptive practices type of theory that's
00:17:31.940 --> 00:17:35.680
interesting and i would encourage folks listening
00:17:35.680 --> 00:17:39.490
to this if they didn't read or catch wind of
00:17:39.490 --> 00:17:42.009
the old Navy case brought under this California
00:17:42.009 --> 00:17:43.970
law that it would be good to look at that. I
00:17:43.970 --> 00:17:46.809
think their issue there was a subject line said
00:17:46.809 --> 00:17:49.670
something about final day of a sale when in fact
00:17:49.670 --> 00:17:52.430
it was not the final day of the sale. So it sounds
00:17:52.430 --> 00:17:54.349
like it's in that same ballpark that you were
00:17:54.349 --> 00:17:56.569
just talking about. Exactly. And then there's
00:17:56.569 --> 00:17:59.089
another piece of this, which is the from line.
00:17:59.349 --> 00:18:03.740
So if you are advertising. A company is not putting
00:18:03.740 --> 00:18:06.480
those advertisements into your Gmail promotions
00:18:06.480 --> 00:18:10.339
folder. It's Google, for example, who's doing
00:18:10.339 --> 00:18:15.099
that. And so when the email says it's from a
00:18:15.099 --> 00:18:18.819
Google address, who is the actual conduit of
00:18:18.819 --> 00:18:21.980
this advertisement, but it says in the front
00:18:21.980 --> 00:18:24.519
line that it is from the company that is using
00:18:24.519 --> 00:18:27.839
the Google service, those two things are not
00:18:27.839 --> 00:18:31.240
aligned and these plaintiffs are... alleging
00:18:31.240 --> 00:18:34.359
that that's misleading because there's it's is
00:18:34.359 --> 00:18:37.019
it from google is it from the company and it's
00:18:37.019 --> 00:18:40.440
not um matching up and that's that's deceptive
00:18:40.440 --> 00:18:45.339
according to these allegations that however is
00:18:45.339 --> 00:18:48.059
actionable under the federal can spam act that
00:18:48.059 --> 00:18:51.660
kind of theory yeah so we've got a preemption
00:18:51.660 --> 00:18:54.720
argument there so you can't bring one of these
00:18:54.720 --> 00:18:56.980
claims under that theory because it's preempted
00:18:56.980 --> 00:19:01.329
by federal law and i can't spam okay So before
00:19:01.329 --> 00:19:04.730
we put a bow on how companies should navigate
00:19:04.730 --> 00:19:08.089
this with California, are there any other states
00:19:08.089 --> 00:19:11.710
that they should have on their radar? There are
00:19:11.710 --> 00:19:14.390
a couple other states with these laws. Washington
00:19:14.390 --> 00:19:20.250
has a law fairly similar. The private right of
00:19:20.250 --> 00:19:23.910
action is $500 per email violation. So it's a
00:19:23.910 --> 00:19:27.869
little lower, but still plenty high. And that
00:19:27.869 --> 00:19:32.420
law is even older. that's from 1998 so these
00:19:32.420 --> 00:19:35.359
laws are i mean it's surprising that you have
00:19:35.359 --> 00:19:38.559
anti -spam email laws that are this old because
00:19:38.559 --> 00:19:41.019
people weren't really emailing quite in the same
00:19:41.019 --> 00:19:45.710
volume that they were nearly 30 years ago as
00:19:45.710 --> 00:19:47.589
they are now, but Washington is another state.
00:19:47.970 --> 00:19:50.990
We've seen a lot of consumer protection litigation
00:19:50.990 --> 00:19:53.750
in Washington lately. It's not quite at the level
00:19:53.750 --> 00:19:57.650
of California, but it's not surprising that that's
00:19:57.650 --> 00:20:00.670
another state that's seeing activity here. Okay.
00:20:01.130 --> 00:20:04.089
I know we've got a pretty educated audience,
00:20:04.230 --> 00:20:07.130
but for anyone that is sitting there hearing
00:20:07.130 --> 00:20:11.009
$500 per violation or $1 ,000 per violation in
00:20:11.009 --> 00:20:13.720
California, I do want to... reiterate the point
00:20:13.720 --> 00:20:15.799
you made to make sure they caught it which yeah
00:20:15.799 --> 00:20:17.579
that could be painful if we're talking about
00:20:17.579 --> 00:20:20.660
multiple violations with a single plaintiff it's
00:20:20.660 --> 00:20:24.140
it's that ultimately snowballing into a class
00:20:24.140 --> 00:20:29.700
action and likely multi -million dollar penalties
00:20:29.700 --> 00:20:33.480
or exposure eventually settlements and even if
00:20:33.480 --> 00:20:37.059
you're successful with defending it all the attorney's
00:20:37.059 --> 00:20:38.980
fees and time and effort involved in defending
00:20:39.549 --> 00:20:41.609
that type of activity. Not that we don't love
00:20:41.609 --> 00:20:43.730
attorney's fees, Frank, but just calling it out
00:20:43.730 --> 00:20:44.990
for our folks that are listening. We don't love
00:20:44.990 --> 00:20:47.609
plaintiff's attorney's fees. Exactly, exactly.
00:20:49.329 --> 00:20:53.750
Yeah, just one kind of related point there. What
00:20:53.750 --> 00:20:57.910
we could start seeing are pre -litigation demand
00:20:57.910 --> 00:21:02.130
letters more than, I mean, let me back up a step.
00:21:02.230 --> 00:21:04.369
What the plaintiff's firms want, or the plaintiff's
00:21:04.369 --> 00:21:06.369
firms in this area want, is a couple of good
00:21:06.369 --> 00:21:09.650
decisions. denying motions to dismiss in federal
00:21:09.650 --> 00:21:12.009
or state court in california then they can use
00:21:12.009 --> 00:21:14.329
those they can cite them in these pre -litigation
00:21:14.329 --> 00:21:16.930
demand letters that they that they will if it's
00:21:16.930 --> 00:21:19.890
anything like what we see with uh the sepal or
00:21:19.890 --> 00:21:22.950
sipa law uh with website tracking they're just
00:21:22.950 --> 00:21:25.150
going to blanket companies they're going to send
00:21:25.150 --> 00:21:27.990
out thousands of these letters threatening a
00:21:27.990 --> 00:21:31.390
class action to your point the damages are going
00:21:31.390 --> 00:21:33.609
to be in the tens of millions potentially maybe
00:21:33.609 --> 00:21:38.750
more or you could settle individually with this
00:21:38.750 --> 00:21:42.690
individual plaintiff pre -litigation for less
00:21:42.690 --> 00:21:44.609
than you would spend on the cost of defense,
00:21:44.829 --> 00:21:49.329
and that that will cost companies not quite the
00:21:49.329 --> 00:21:52.109
same amount, but it will be certainly a nuisance
00:21:52.109 --> 00:21:54.730
complaint. So I think that they're following
00:21:54.730 --> 00:21:58.869
a similar playbook that we saw with the website
00:21:58.869 --> 00:22:00.690
tracking litigation that we're seeing with the
00:22:00.690 --> 00:22:04.130
website tracking litigation in California. Okay.
00:22:05.289 --> 00:22:08.829
All right. So this is all good for people to
00:22:08.829 --> 00:22:11.609
hear. Now they're probably thinking, what do
00:22:11.609 --> 00:22:15.009
I do about this? Obviously, you don't want to
00:22:15.009 --> 00:22:17.910
be an easy target. That's always our first recommendation
00:22:17.910 --> 00:22:21.109
is understand the type of email activity your
00:22:21.109 --> 00:22:24.009
company is conducting. What's the scope of that?
00:22:24.630 --> 00:22:27.569
And then what controls, guardrails do you have
00:22:27.569 --> 00:22:30.750
in place to mitigate the risk associated with
00:22:30.750 --> 00:22:33.150
this, to review those emails, these campaigns,
00:22:33.430 --> 00:22:36.059
make sure there's Nothing that could be alleged
00:22:36.059 --> 00:22:38.619
to be misleading, despite we know the plaintiffs
00:22:38.619 --> 00:22:40.900
are going to do their best anyways. That would
00:22:40.900 --> 00:22:42.339
be our advice. I'm curious, what do you have
00:22:42.339 --> 00:22:44.740
in addition to that? Yeah, I mean, it's about
00:22:44.740 --> 00:22:47.619
mitigation, not elimination of risk. I mean,
00:22:47.660 --> 00:22:49.839
it's similar with the TCPA. You just have to
00:22:49.839 --> 00:22:52.140
have a strong compliance program. But if you're
00:22:52.140 --> 00:22:56.799
marketing to consumers, it's the cost of doing
00:22:56.799 --> 00:22:58.539
business at the very least that you're going
00:22:58.539 --> 00:23:01.950
to be faced with. if it's not this email lawsuit,
00:23:02.069 --> 00:23:06.390
some other kind of nuisance -type claim. So you
00:23:06.390 --> 00:23:08.930
have to do what you can, which is basically what
00:23:08.930 --> 00:23:12.549
you would do anyway as a company that is invested
00:23:12.549 --> 00:23:16.150
in how it's viewed publicly by its customers
00:23:16.150 --> 00:23:18.849
and consumers at large, which is tell the truth,
00:23:19.390 --> 00:23:22.950
right? Avoid misleading subject lines. Make sure
00:23:22.950 --> 00:23:25.500
that you're... you know clearly identifying who's
00:23:25.500 --> 00:23:28.819
advertising a product or service in the from
00:23:28.819 --> 00:23:32.180
line of the email don't use third -party domains
00:23:32.180 --> 00:23:35.500
without their permission um just do what you
00:23:35.500 --> 00:23:38.119
would expect you know just take a common sense
00:23:38.119 --> 00:23:41.640
view i think is at this point without a developed
00:23:41.640 --> 00:23:44.380
case law here take a common sense view of of
00:23:44.380 --> 00:23:45.940
the world that you don't want to lie to your
00:23:45.940 --> 00:23:48.759
customers i mean how ticked off would you be
00:23:48.759 --> 00:23:51.500
as a customer if you get an email with the subject
00:23:51.500 --> 00:23:54.579
line suggesting some massive discount you open
00:23:54.579 --> 00:23:58.359
it up and it's not true at all um i think most
00:23:58.359 --> 00:24:00.299
companies are probably doing that anyway i would
00:24:00.299 --> 00:24:03.920
hope um so i certainly don't have any clients
00:24:03.920 --> 00:24:05.759
i don't think you do either who are actively
00:24:05.759 --> 00:24:08.259
trying to you know engage in a bait and switch
00:24:08.259 --> 00:24:12.039
uh marketing campaign but just making sure that
00:24:12.039 --> 00:24:13.859
you know you're kind of tracking these kinds
00:24:13.859 --> 00:24:16.920
of developments for the foot faults that could
00:24:16.920 --> 00:24:19.980
end up, you know, creating liability risk later
00:24:19.980 --> 00:24:24.000
on. And then just monitor for developments in
00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:25.900
this area, just like you would with any, you
00:24:25.900 --> 00:24:28.140
know, whether it's TCPA or SIP or whatever it
00:24:28.140 --> 00:24:33.480
might be, because this is very quickly and rapidly
00:24:33.480 --> 00:24:37.200
evolving. But for now, I think just tell the
00:24:37.200 --> 00:24:41.660
truth. Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. from what
00:24:41.660 --> 00:24:45.319
we've seen when issues pop up with this it's
00:24:45.319 --> 00:24:47.980
usually unintentional with our clients they have
00:24:47.980 --> 00:24:52.000
a good wanting to tell the truth marketing legal
00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:54.960
compliance team but then it's somebody has a
00:24:54.960 --> 00:24:57.099
great idea for a campaign or they have a third
00:24:57.099 --> 00:25:00.410
-party marketing agency downstream that has a
00:25:00.410 --> 00:25:02.549
model that's worked well for other clients of
00:25:02.549 --> 00:25:04.509
theirs and they want to launch that. And perhaps
00:25:04.509 --> 00:25:07.069
you're getting into that gray area of misleading.
00:25:07.309 --> 00:25:09.430
And so that's where we would just recommend caution
00:25:09.430 --> 00:25:12.190
and where possible have those controls. Make
00:25:12.190 --> 00:25:14.029
sure there is some review and approval process
00:25:14.029 --> 00:25:17.210
for any new campaigns, any new subject lines,
00:25:17.470 --> 00:25:21.029
just for peace of mind. Again, like you said,
00:25:21.029 --> 00:25:25.410
Frank, really appreciate you joining us today
00:25:25.410 --> 00:25:30.720
and sharing and staying on. be on time with us.
00:25:30.779 --> 00:25:33.319
I would just like to ask you real quick, where
00:25:33.319 --> 00:25:35.299
can the audience find you if they'd like to learn
00:25:35.299 --> 00:25:37.440
more about this or some of the areas that you
00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:40.740
and the Eversheds team focus on? Sure. I'm happy
00:25:40.740 --> 00:25:43.859
to answer any questions if you want to reach
00:25:43.859 --> 00:25:46.579
out. Or pretty much the best place to find me
00:25:46.579 --> 00:25:49.799
is at the Compliance Point Exchange Conference
00:25:49.799 --> 00:25:53.740
coming up in March, where I'll be speaking about
00:25:53.740 --> 00:25:59.829
data breach litigation and how your early response
00:25:59.829 --> 00:26:03.309
to data breach can impact your litigation strategy
00:26:03.309 --> 00:26:06.190
later on. So I'll be seeing you there, Matt,
00:26:06.369 --> 00:26:10.309
and find out if any of the audience members there
00:26:10.309 --> 00:26:13.509
are regular listeners to the podcast. Yeah, I
00:26:13.509 --> 00:26:15.569
hope so. I hope so. No, we appreciate the plug.
00:26:15.630 --> 00:26:17.190
Yeah, for the audience, we do have our event
00:26:17.190 --> 00:26:20.109
coming up in just under two months. If you haven't
00:26:20.109 --> 00:26:22.150
registered, please do so. Frank will be there.
00:26:22.809 --> 00:26:24.630
While his session is going to be focused on data
00:26:24.630 --> 00:26:26.349
breach, I'm sure you could grab him during one
00:26:26.349 --> 00:26:28.869
of the breaks and pick his ear on this email
00:26:28.869 --> 00:26:34.029
issue too. We will make Frank's information available
00:26:34.029 --> 00:26:36.609
associated with this podcast when we post it,
00:26:36.650 --> 00:26:38.829
and mine will be available too. If anyone has
00:26:38.829 --> 00:26:41.009
any questions, feel free to reach out directly.
00:26:41.650 --> 00:26:45.250
Frank, thank you for the time. See you in Orlando.
00:26:46.049 --> 00:26:46.730
Take care.