LawEddie.com

This is an American Act governing the behaviour of sending spam mails. This Act, that became effective January 1, 2004, covers email whose primary purpose is advertising or promoting a commercial product or service, including content on a Web site.

Below listed the gist of the law extracted from the Federal Trade Commission’s website for your reference:

“What the Law Requires
Here’s a rundown of the law’s main provisions:

It bans false or misleading header information. Your email’s “From,” “To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email.

It prohibits deceptive subject lines. The subject line cannot mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.

It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a “menu” of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.

Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor’s email address. You cannot help another entity send email to that address, or have another entity send email on your behalf to that address. Finally, it’s illegal for you to sell or transfer the email addresses of people who choose not to receive your email, even in the form of a mailing list, unless you transfer the addresses so another entity can comply with the law.

It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender’s valid physical postal address. Your message must contain clear and conspicuous notice that the message is an advertisement or solicitation and that the recipient can opt out of receiving more commercial email from you. It also must include your valid physical postal address.
 

Penalties
Each violation of the above provisions is subject to fines of up to $11,000. Deceptive commercial email also is subject to laws banning false or misleading advertising.

Additional fines are provided for commercial emailers who not only violate the rules described above, but also:

“harvest” email addresses from Web sites or Web services that have published a notice prohibiting the transfer of email addresses for the purpose of sending email

Generate email addresses using a “dictionary attack” – combining names, letters, or numbers into multiple permutations

Use scripts or other automated ways to register for multiple email or user accounts to send commercial email

Relay emails through a computer or network without permission – for example, by taking advantage of open relays or open proxies without authorization.
The law allows the Department Of Justice to seek criminal penalties, including imprisonment, for commercial emailers who do – or conspire to:

Use another computer without authorization and send commercial email from or through it

Use a computer to relay or retransmit multiple commercial email messages to deceive or mislead recipients or an Internet access service about the origin of the message

Falsify header information in multiple email messages and initiate the transmission of such messages

Register for multiple email accounts or domain names using information that falsifies the identity of the actual registrant

Falsely represent themselves as owners of multiple Internet Protocol addresses that are used to send commercial email messages. “

In Singapore spamming can be prosecuted under the Computer Misuse Act.

 Let me know if you come across similar provisions in Malaysia governing spam mails.