Deceptive spam emails in California and Florida

When spam email breaks California law

California’s anti-spam law applies to commercial emails sent from California or to a California email address that:

• Use a third party’s domain name without permission;
• Contain falsified, misrepresented, or forged header information, such as a fake sender name or a “from” address that hides the advertiser; or
• Have a subject line likely to mislead you about what the email contains.

What the law allows

Recipients may recover $1,000 per email, up to $1,000,000 per incident, plus attorney’s fees Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17529.5. In Florida, unsolicited commercial emails with false or misleading information can be worth actual damages or $500 per email, whichever is greater Fla. Stat. § 668.606. Texas law also allows claims over deceptive commercial email Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 321.

What to do now

• Move suspicious marketing emails into a folder instead of deleting them.
• Don’t click “unsubscribe” links in emails that look fake; they can confirm your address.
• Forward a few examples to us after we confirm we can review them.

Questions