It breaks CAN-SPAM because there is no unsubscribe link, on reply "unsubscribe" the system does not remove the user. Email is not transactional, last time I logged into Etsy was years ago.
This is just a terrible way to introduce yourself. They clearly were aware of the law because they include their address(es) in the footer. An honest mistake would have been if the footer was missing. But the footer is clearly there.
I'm sure it was an accident. But if you have an active account on the site, I think it's reasonable to assume you have some level of relationship with the site.
Yes, a bit annoying. But sometimes you can give people a little break, delete the email, and move on. Unfortunately, expecting one's inbox to be as pristine as a sacred temple is no longer realistic.
"Transactional or relationship content – which facilitates an already agreed-upon transaction or updates a customer about an ongoing transaction;"
From ftc website. This doesn't seem to fall under that category.
Edit: More from site.
A. The primary purpose of an email is transactional or relationship if it consists only of content that:
facilitates or confirms a commercial transaction that the recipient already has agreed to;
gives warranty, recall, safety, or security information about a product or service;
gives information about a change in terms or features or account balance information regarding a membership, subscription, account, loan or other ongoing commercial relationship;
provides information about an employment relationship or employee benefits; or
delivers goods or services as part of a transaction that the recipient already has agreed to.
If you're a member of Etsy, then you have an ongoing commercial relationship with the site and this is an update on that relationship.
People also generally interpret "deliver goods or services as part of a transaction" pretty broadly especially if the user agreed to receive emails from you when they signed up.
It speaks of a dysfunctional organisation IMO. Surely the CEO didn't send this out without it passing through an editing process and through some IT people (if they did then that may be worse). Why didn't they flag the issue? Are they incompetent; too afraid??
Regardless of whether there's a strict requirement to meet CAN-SPAM _all_ company emails should be following the spirit of that regulation, even those sent out in less regulated jurisdictions.
I hate reactions like this. You've deduced that Etsy.com is likely a "dysfunctional organisation" for the mistake of missing an "Unsubscribe" link in a single email. If that's all it takes, we certainly live in an incredibly dysfunctional world (which is sort of true, I guess).
Way too often I see people in this industry pretend as though everyone else is expected to conform to the strictest of standards yet the same rules never seem to apply to our own self-created fires. "Google Apps is down! Clearly Google has some quality control issues!" Or maybe a well-intentioned human made a small unhandled error.
The are a few possible scenarios but none of them look good to me: how do you think it's possible for a CEO to send out emails without, presumably, them being checked for legislative compliance.
Like Etsy don't have an email template? Or don't have anyone in ITS who knows about CAN-SPAM? Or the boss over-ruled them? Or the org didn't care about spam? Or everyone was too afraid to mention it? Or ...
You can say "they just left it out", but how? If Etsy was a startup or 3 person business then, OK, it's a reasonable excuse. (Etsy have more than 600 employees according to Google search.)
Yes errors happen, this one looks bad for the organisation to me.
Im more interested in whether or not this breaks the law of things rather than who has access to my personal email. It baffles me that they have a footer with addresses but no unsubscribe.
This is a slippery slope, what if every company starts doing this.
I think you're correct--someone else in the comments pasted the FTC's definition of "transactional," and the transaction in question may be an already initiated commercial transaction, not an interactive transaction between two parties on email like I had thought.
CAN-SPAM likely doesn't apply to the message in the first place, but even if it did it does not specifically require that you can unsubscribe by replying. That's just an example of one method they can provide.
Don't most transactional emails come from a noreply@? Things like "you bought a ticket" or "your package has shipped" or "we'd love your feedback on your recent purchase" are all transactional emails typically sent by robots.
This is just a terrible way to introduce yourself. They clearly were aware of the law because they include their address(es) in the footer. An honest mistake would have been if the footer was missing. But the footer is clearly there.