List Owners, Senders, and List Rental (oh my)

DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

Last week the FTC approved a new rule provision under the CAN-SPAM act. The ruling specifically addressed multiple senders and who could be a sender and also alluded to the concept of list ownership. Based on the combination of these things list rental can fall into a gray area.

If you aren’t advertising in a list rental email, even though you are the list owner, you may not be able to be considered the sender. This has a few interesting implications. Can the list owner be the branding in the from line? Can you, or even should you offer an opt-out mechanism? All of these also carry deliverability implications as well. For instance, if the branding must be based on the renter, your authentication may be broken. Senders might not be able to capitalize on personal whitelisting, which bypasses some filtering. If it isn’t possible to be completely opted out of the list owner’s emails via an unsub link, that will lead to an increase in complaints.

To me the best solution to this dilemma from a deliverability standpoint would be make sure to brand your emails in such a way as the list owner can be perceived as an advertiser. If the list owner can be considered an advertiser in the email they would be able to be the designated sender. As the designated sender you can reap the benefits of the changes in the CAN-SPAM clarifications. But equally important is the fact that it allows you to capitalize on your own branding to potentially boost response for your advertisers.