Does this not make "Capturing Email Addresses" worthless??

In my seven years, I have yet to send an email offer to anyone, but times they are a'changin...

However, it was always my understanding that once someone becomes a customer, you can email them -- in fact, once they open the line of communication by contacting you with questions or whatever, you can email them.

I may be misunderstanding something in the article Sandi posted ...

The way I read it, you are taking a huge risk if you send email to:

= customers...

= anyone who downloaded something free, giving their email address in the process (i.e., you "captured" their email, albeit willingly)...

= anyone who subscribed to something free, giving their email address in the process...

= anyone who contacted you about your web site or products...

... unless all of the above have specifically asked to be put on your mailing list or sent future offers or whatever.

That puts a HUGE damper on many things -- including people who contact/market to Ebayers who have bid on their products, people who give away free ebooks with the intent of later marketing to those who downloaded it, etc.

Obviously when someone subscribes, your new offers go out in the thing they subscribed to -- but in the case of a free e-book, you will have new offers in the future, and with CAN-SPAM, you cannot send those just because they gave their email address to get the free e-book.

And when you take your orders through a third party rather than your own order form, I don't believe you have a way to add such a button. I suppose in your "Thank You" note you could say, "If you do NOT want to receive future offers..." -- but does that cover it, since they never asked to receive future offers in the first place?

1. Am I right, or am I missing something here?

2. Does putting one of those check boxes at the end of your "email capture" form ("please inform me of updates" or something) cover you?

3. What is the best way to word that to cover the most number of bases, without causing the obvious outcome (i.e., nobody checks it and you still end up with no mailing list)?

I'm sure there must be other people who have these same concerns (or maybe I'm just worrying too much, like I do with so many things, but the fines are horrifying).

Luv,