How do we make XenForo Maillist system comply with international anti-spam regulations

[HydraulicJack]

I just received the following email from a forum member:

I tried to unsubscribe from this email list, but there is no link to unsubscribe. All newsletters/mailing lists are required to have a link to unsubscribe as well as the sender's address and contact info.
International Spam Laws - this is the info on MailChimp (who I use for my mailing lists), and they explain the details as well as the info on specific countries like Canada, Australia, the EU, etc.
Please unsubscribe me from these mailings.

Thanks,

 

[Digital Jedi]

He may be referring to Mail Chimp's requirements, and not actual international anti-spam laws. For instance, the Bureau of Consumer Protection lays out these laws much differently. I'm thinking it isn't just ALL mailings from everywhere in the world. Each country likely has different regulations, and that probably only affects the sender, not the recipient.

 

[Dodgeboard]

Xenforo Maillist system? I didn't know Xenforo had a mail list system.

Do you mean the emails that are sent (manually) by the admin from email users in Users tab, or do you mean the emails sent from the board software, that the user has opted to receive (via the usercp), such as for replies to a thread and registration?

Either way, I would just answer him and let him know where to change his subscription settings in Xenforo so that he does not receive emails from your board. As far as requiring an "unsubscribe link" in the email, there is a link to change your contact preferences in the emails sent by Xenforo. I think the unsubscribe link thing is for unsolicited emails, not opt-in communications.

 

[HydraulicJack]

Thanks DJ. The business and server is located in the USA so I presume it would be subject to its laws. The user who complained is also in the USA.

I'd appreciate input from others as well as any further thoughts from you, re: this matter.
Thanks very much for taking the time to reply!
All the best,
HJ

 

[HydraulicJack]

Xenforo Maillist system? I didn't know Xenforo had a mail list system.

Do you mean the emails that are sent (manually) by the amdin from email users in Users tab, or do you mean the emails sent from the board software, that the user has opted to receive (via the usercp), such as for replies to a thread and registration?

Thanks for your questions. This is re: registered forum users to whom I sent out an announcement about a forum event.

Others have also asked about how to unsubscribe from the announcements.

Perhaps for event announcements I should use something like MailChimp that has a separate subscription action and is compliant with the laws that be.
Since I basically provide the forum service for nearly free, I'd rather not go to that expense, but I likewise want people to be able to unsubscribe easily.

Typically what I do is just delete their email addy from their registration area and they receive no further emails from the forum whatsoever, but this is something that I must do manually and it would be great to give them a means to remove their email from their user system easily by giving them an unsubscribe link option at the bottom of all emails sent from the forum.

 

[Dodgeboard]

Checkout this Xenforo Mailchimp integration: http://connect.mailchimp.com/integrations/xenforo-mailchimp-integration-plugin

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/mailchimp-xenforo-plugin.14469/

You may also need to update your terms of use for registrations to be in full compliance, since you will be sending unsolicited announcements to your members.

 

[Digital Jedi]

From what I was reading, the email laws only applied if you were running a commercial site, or promoting a commercial product.

 

[MagnusB]

The easiest way is to just point them to their privacy settings, they can opt out on emails there. If you really want to, you can set up a custom user field where they explicitly opt in, and then set up a user promotion when that custom field is checked. I assume you use the send email option from Xenforo, so from there you can choose to send only to that secondary group.

 

[HydraulicJack]

Thanks for all of these great suggestions. The site and forum ARE a commercial site. People have purchased my publications and the site is to support their practice of techniques I teach. It is also viewable by the general public, but only people who have purchased and who have registered for the forum may be on the list.

 

[we_are_borg]

You can read here that even Non Profit organizations must follow the Spam-can act. If you are in the EU its the same. You need to provide an unsubscribe link in the emails you are sending this can be to http://xenforo.com/community/account/preferences for example. Just manual edit the templates of the email and point them to the correct place where you can edit the options of getting email.

http://xenforo.com/community/account/preferences
http://xenforo.com/community/account/alert-preferences

Those 2 have the most options for people getting emails and want to opt-out.

 

[HydraulicJack]

Thanks VERY much, we_are_borg, I'll give it a go!