Unsolicited Commercial E-mail Protection Act

A person who intentionally sends an unsolicited commercial e-mail through an e-mail service provider the sender knew or should have known is located in Michigan, or to an address the sender knew or should have known is held by a Michigan resident, must begin its subject line with "ADV:", conspicuously state the sender's legal name, correct street address, valid domain name and valid return e-mail address, and provide a toll-free number, return e-mail address or other easy electronic method to opt out, with a notice of it in print as large as most of the message.

Unsolicited means without the recipient's express permission, and an e-mail is not unsolicited if the sender has a preexisting business or personal relationship with the recipient or the recipient opted into a system to receive promotional material.

A sender of unsolicited commercial e-mail through a Michigan provider or to a Michigan resident's address must not use a third party's domain name or e-mail address to identify the message's point of origin or transmission path without consent, misrepresent that information, or omit the information needed to identify the point of origin.

Once a recipient tells the sender they do not want future unsolicited commercial e-mail, the sender must not send them any, directly or through a third party, and must keep policies and records, updated at least every 14 business days, so that the recipient receives none from the date of the notice.

The origin and transmission-path prohibitions are framed as rules against falsity or deception, the kind of state email rule the CAN-SPAM Act's preemption clause leaves in force; the labeling, identification and opt-out duties are not framed that way.

A person must not knowingly sell, give, distribute or possess with intent to distribute software primarily designed, of only limited other commercially significant use, or marketed to enable falsifying commercial e-mail transmission or routing information.

A violation is a misdemeanor, and a violation of section 4, which holds the origin and path prohibitions and the opt-out-honoring duty, or of the act in furtherance of another crime is a felony; each commercial e-mail sent in violation is a separate violation. It is a defense that the e-mail was transmitted accidentally or as a result of a preexisting business relationship, which the sender must prove.

A recipient, an e-mail service provider through whose facilities the e-mail passed, or the attorney general may recover actual damages or, in lieu of actual damages, the lesser of $500 for each unsolicited commercial e-mail or $250,000 for each day the violation occurs, and a prevailing recipient or e-mail service provider also recovers actual costs and reasonable attorney fees.

An e-mail service provider does not violate the act by acting as an intermediary in, or providing, the transmission of an unsolicited commercial e-mail that violates it. Person is defined to include a governmental entity as well as an individual, corporation, partnership or association.