Email Permission Management

This article describes how our email permission system works. Determining email permission is a complex process that leverages all available data to determine the correct email permission for each person in your database. Our goal is to ensure that our clients have the tools to properly follow rules and regulations -- including the various permutations of CASL, GDPR, and CAN-SPAM.

Fields that Help Inform Email Permission

Field

Definition

SPAM Law Authority

Each individual email address in our system is governed by a specific SPAM Law. Currently, this can be CASL, CAN-SPAM and GDPR. The specific SPAM Law authority will help define how the individual email address is treated in our system.

Email Permission 

Email Permission is set to either “Yes” or “No”.  If email permission is set to “No,” it is not possible to send the contact an email in Ascent360 or send the contact to an external Email Service Provider (ESP). Email Permission is the final result of all the logic to define if an individual is contactable.

Email Permission Status

Email Permission Status is similar to email permission but is more granular and can be set to “Yes”, “No” or “Unknown”.  

  • “Yes” means that we have explicit permission from the individual that says, “I would like to hear from your company via email”.  “Yes” is a hard opt in and qualifies for GDPR explicit status.  
  • “No” means that we have an explicit Opt-Out. This is often from an email service provider such as Ascent360 or Acoustic, but it can also come from a source system such as an eCommerce system that collects and stores explicit opt outs.
  • “Unknown” means that we have neither an explicit No or an explicit Yes. This is often referred to as “implied consent” since the consumer gave us their email address through a transaction. A transaction is defined as an interaction with the customer’s company and can be a variety of things including a purchase or a web form completion.

Source (Source Type)

100% of the records that are loaded into the Ascent360 platform require a source to identify where the data originated. This could say “MailChimp” if the data is coming from MailChimp or it could say “Web Form XYZ” if the data is coming from a form on a website. This is meaningful for email permissions because if we get a “Hard Opt In” (explicit yes), then we want to be able to track when and where we received that hard opt in. At some point in the future, if you get a complaint from a consumer that says, “Why did I get an email? I never opted in.”, Ascent360 will be able to tell you that the individual really did opt in on a specific date and from what source.

Source Date (List Source Date) 

Source Date is the date related to the source of the data. This is typically the date we received the record. However, the date may also be years old. As an example, if we are loading data from a legacy eCommerce system and many transactions occurred years ago, then we will use the transaction date, or an explicit email subscribe date if there is one.

Email Domain Extension

The extension of the email address often signifies the country in which the owner of the domain lives. Ascent360 uses the email domain extension as one dimension to inform the correct SPAM Law Authority of the individual.  ICAAN, the regulatory body in charge of the internet addressing system has created a domain extension for all countries in the world as well as some regions. As an example, there is a .UK extension to signify the United Kingdom and a .EU to signify the European Union. It must be noted that it is not actually necessary to live in the EU to have a .EU extension. It is possible simply to sign up for a .EU extension. For this reason, Ascent360 will prioritize a physical address over a domain extension.

Country Code

If Ascent360 receives any physical address data from any of the incoming data sources, we will attempt to define what Country the address is in. Ascent360 uses third party data sources, such as the US Postal Service database to add the country code. We do not use IP address or any Geo Location to define the country and we do not plan on doing this in the future as we do not believe this is an accurate way to assume physical location. Ascent360 does add an ISO standard country code to the system.

Client Country

Our clients are located or headquartered in various countries. Many are headquartered in the United States or Canada. The clients’ country does change how Ascent360 determines the rules by which we manage our clients’ data. If the client country is Canada, we will assume that individuals with no physical address or domain country extension are located in Canada. However, if our client is located in the United States, we will assume that individuals with no physical address data or domain country extension are located in the United States.

Last Transaction Date

Last Transaction Date is a date set for each individual that notes the last date on which they made a financial purchase. This is important for determining implied status in CASL Regulations.

Source Opt Status

Source Opt Status is the “Email Permission Status” that came from the source. Source Opt Status essentially asks the question, was the intent of the individual who put their email address into the system an Explicit Opt In, an Explicit Opt Out, or is that not known.


SPAM Law Authority

Ascent360 determines what SPAM Law Authority should apply to a person in our database based upon two fields. These are “Country Code” and “Email Domain Extension”.

Ascent360 will map an individual email address to the email domain extension based upon the country code of origin. If an individual is physically located in France, then Ascent360 will assign the SPAM Law Authority of GDPR. This is regardless of what email domain extension they have. As you can see below, even if the person has a .ca(Canadian) domain extension but their physical address is in France, we will assign the SPAM Law Authority of GDPR per the law of France. Many people who live all over the world use a .com extension. We will again default to their country of their physical address.

If the country of the physical address is blank, we will use the email domain extension. So, if the physical address country is unknown, but the email domain extension is .ca, we will assign the SPAM Law Authority of CASL per the law of Canada. Rather, if the extension is .fr (France) we will assign SPAM Law Authority of GDPR. 

Example SPAM Law Authority Assignment Based upon Country Code and Email Domain Extension



Country Code          (Primary)



AUT

BEL

CAN

DEU

FRA

USA

Unknown

Email Domain Extension


(Secondary)

.at

GDPR

GDPR

CASL

GDPR

GDPR

CAN-SPAM

GDPR

.au

GDPR

GDPR

CASL

GDPR

GDPR

CAN-SPAM

CAN-SPAM

.biz

GDPR

GDPR

CASL

GDPR

GDPR

CAN-SPAM

CAN-SPAM

.ca

GDPR

GDPR

CASL

GDPR

GDPR

CAN-SPAM

CASL

.co

GDPR

GDPR

CASL

GDPR

GDPR

CAN-SPAM

CAN-SPAM

.com

GDPR

GDPR

CASL

GDPR

GDPR

CAN-SPAM

CAN-SPAM

.de

GDPR

GDPR

CASL

GDPR

GDPR

CAN-SPAM

GDPR

.fr

GDPR

GDPR

CASL

GDPR

GDPR

CAN-SPAM

GDPR

.uk

GDPR

GDPR

CASL

GDPR

GDPR

CAN-SPAM

GDPR


Client Country Identification

If a client identifies as a US company, individuals with an unknown (implied) email permission status will have the “Email Permission” set to Yes. However, if our client defines themselves as being an EU company, a person with an unknown (implied) email permission status will have the “Email Permission” set to No.

Simply stated, if our client is in Canada, all unknowns follow CASL Regulations. If the client is in the EU or the UK, all Unknowns follow GDPR regulations and if our client is in some other country, unknowns will follow CAN-SPAM regulations.

Any of our clients can choose which of the three paths to follow. So even if our client is headquartered in Michigan, they can choose to follow the Canadian Identification and CASL regulation path.

Email Permission Status

Ascent360 will set the “Email Permission Status” field based upon our understanding of the intent of the individual through the source system from which we have received their data. Some systems, like Springer Miller Systems, include an “Explicit Opt-Out” field which we will use to add a hard opt-out to the record. Springer Miller Systems does not have an “Explicit Opt-In” field, so every record that comes in to our system that does not have a hard opt-out will be marked with an “Unknown” or “Implied” opt in. This does not necessarily mean that we can communicate with the individual as CASL or GDPR laws may exclude us from doing so.

100% of the records that come in with an email address will be marked as either Yes, No or Unknown (Explicit Yes, Explicit No or Implied). Ascent360 will also tag the source of the record and the date of the source.

Multiple Sources of Opt-In Data

Many of the individuals in our solution will come from multiple sources. Individuals records may show an explicit opt-out, explicit opt-in or implied opt-in. Ascent360 will merge these sources and only use the most recent explicit yes or explicit no. This means that an explicit yes that comes in AFTER an explicit no will override the explicit no. Similarly, an explicit no that comes in after an explicit yes will also override the explicit yes.

An implied or unknown cannot override an explicit yes or an explicit no.

Ascent360 saves 100% of the records that we are sent by all source systems. This means that the email permission status will be based upon the entire history of data from all sources. As noted above, an individual may enter the database with implied permission, may then opt out, and may then opt back in.

Final Email Permission

As noted in the definitions, Ascent360 has a field called “Email Permission” which is the final authority to determine if we are able to communicate with an individual via email.   This field is set to either Yes or No.   If the field is set to No, our system will not allow you to send email to the individual.  

The table below shows all the permutations of Client Country, SPAM Law Authority, Email Permission Status, and Transaction Past 23 Months which then fully identifies what the Final Email Permission should be.

Client Country

SPAM Law Authority

Email Permission Status

Transaction Past 23 Months?

Email Permission

Client Identifies as Canadian Company

CAN-SPAM

Explicit No

n/a

No

Client Identifies as Canadian Company

CAN-SPAM

Explicit Yes

n/a

Yes

Client Identifies as Canadian Company

CAN-SPAM

Implied

No

No

Client Identifies as Canadian Company

CAN-SPAM

Implied

Yes

Yes

Client Identifies as Canadian Company

CASL

Explicit No

n/a

No

Client Identifies as Canadian Company

CASL

Explicit Yes

n/a

Yes

Client Identifies as Canadian Company

CASL

Implied

No

No

Client Identifies as Canadian Company

CASL

Implied

Yes

Yes

Client Identifies as Canadian Company

GDPR

Explicit No

n/a

No

Client Identifies as Canadian Company

GDPR

Explicit Yes

n/a

Yes

Client Identifies as Canadian Company

GDPR

Implied

No

No

Client Identifies as Canadian Company

GDPR

Implied

Yes

No

Client identifies as EU Company

CAN-SPAM

Explicit No

n/a

No

Client identifies as EU Company

CAN-SPAM

Explicit Yes

n/a

Yes

Client identifies as EU Company

CAN-SPAM

Implied

n/a

No

Client identifies as EU Company

CASL

Explicit No

n/a

No

Client identifies as EU Company

CASL

Explicit Yes

n/a

Yes

Client identifies as EU Company

CASL

Implied

No

No

Client identifies as EU Company

CASL

Implied

Yes

Yes

Client identifies as EU Company

GDPR

Explicit No

n/a

No

Client identifies as EU Company

GDPR

Explicit Yes

n/a

Yes

Client identifies as EU Company

GDPR

Implied

n/a

Yes

Client Identifies as Non EU / Canada Company

CAN-SPAM

Explicit No

n/a

No

Client Identifies as Non EU / Canada Company

CAN-SPAM

Explicit Yes

n/a

Yes

Client Identifies as Non EU / Canada Company

CAN-SPAM

Implied

n/a

Yes

Client Identifies as Non EU / Canada Company

CASL

Explicit No

n/a

No

Client Identifies as Non EU / Canada Company

CASL

Explicit Yes

n/a

Yes

Client Identifies as Non EU / Canada Company

CASL

Implied

No

No

Client Identifies as Non EU / Canada Company

CASL

Implied

Yes

Yes

Client Identifies as Non EU / Canada Company

GDPR

Explicit No

n/a

No

Client Identifies as Non EU / Canada Company

GDPR

Explicit Yes

n/a

Yes

Client Identifies as Non EU / Canada Company

GDPR

Implied

n/a

No

Appendix A:  Email Domain Extensions

Appendix A is a list of email Domain Extensions and which SPAM Law Authority they are associated with. Appendix B is a list of  country codes and which SPAM Law Authority they are associated with.  Please remember that a Country Code will override an Email Domain Extension.

EU

Country

SPAM Law Authority

Austria

.at

GDPR

Belgium

.be

GDPR

Bulgaria

.bg

GDPR

Croatia

.hr

GDPR

Republic of Cyprus

.cy

GDPR

Czech Republic

.cz

GDPR

Denmark

.dk

GDPR

Estonia

.ee

GDPR

Finland

.fi

GDPR

France

.fr

GDPR

Germany

.de

GDPR

Greece

.gr

GDPR

Hungary

.hu

GDPR

Ireland

.ie

GDPR

Italy

.it

GDPR

Latvia

.lv

GDPR

Lithuania

.lt

GDPR

Luxembourg

.lu

GDPR

Malta

.mt

GDPR

Netherlands

.nl

GDPR

Poland

.pl

GDPR

Portugal

.pt

GDPR

Romania

.ro

GDPR

Slovakia

.sk

GDPR

Slovenia

.si

GDPR

Spain

.es

GDPR

Sweden

.se

GDPR

United Kingdom

.uk

GDPR

Europe

.eu

GDPR

Canada

.ca

CASL

Unknown

.com

CAN-SPAM

Unknown

.net

CAN-SPAM

Unknown

.org

CAN-SPAM

All Others

.XXX

CAN-SPAM


Appendix B:  Country Codes

ISO Country Code

Country Name

SPAM Law Authority

AUT

Austria

GDPR

BEL

Belgium

GDPR

BGR

Bulgaria 

GDPR

HRV

Croatia 

GDPR

CYP

Cyprus 

GDPR

CZE

Czech Republic 

GDPR

DNK

Denmark 

GDPR

EST

Estonia 

GDPR

FIN

Finland 

GDPR

FRA

France 

GDPR

DEU

Germany 

GDPR

GRC

Greece 

GDPR

HUN

Hungary 

GDPR

IRL

Ireland 

GDPR

ITA

Italy 

GDPR

LVA

Latvia 

GDPR

LTU

Lithuania 

GDPR

LUX

Luxembourg 

GDPR

MLT

Malta 

GDPR

NLD

Netherlands 

GDPR

POL

Poland 

GDPR

PRT

Portugal 

GDPR

ROU

Romania

GDPR

SVK

Slovakia 

GDPR

SVN

Slovenia 

GDPR

ESP

Spain 

GDPR

SWE

Sweden 

GDPR

GBR

United Kingdom 

GDPR

CAN

Canada

CASL

USA

United States

CAN-SPAM

XXX

All Others

CAN-SPAM