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First let me qualify by saying that I am not only a lawyer in the Internet and anti-spam industry, but I helped author the "affiliate spam" section of CAN-SPAM, to which this clause is a natural extension. We are also fresh from a teleseminar which we provided on this very subject.

The following is an excerpt from our CAN-SPAM compliance page, which is at http://www.isipp.com/can-spam.php:

In large part, this requirement is an effort to hold affiliate programs responsible for how their affiliates promote them. If the affiliate is honest about who they are, and their "From address", and if they put something in the email about themselves, then the user will be able to unsubscribe from the affiliate's list. But if the affiliate is dishonest, and hides their true identity, then the affiliate program for the product featured in the email (which will be the product being sold under the affiliate program) becomes responsible. In other words, if you are advertised in the affiliate's email, and the affiliate cloaks who they are, you become responsible. By shifting responsiblity for mislabled email to the companies being advertised in the email, there is an incentive for affiliate program managers to more tightly police their affiliates.

Anne P. Mitchell, Esq.
CEO/President
Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy
http://www.isipp.com/

First let me qualify by saying that I am not only a lawyer in the Internet and anti-spam industry, but I helped author the "affiliate spam" section of CAN-SPAM, to which this clause is a natural extension. We are also fresh from a teleseminar which we provided on this very subject.

The following is an excerpt from our CAN-SPAM compliance page, which is at http://www.isipp.com/can-spam.php:

In large part, this requirement is an effort to hold affiliate programs responsible for how their affiliates promote them. If the affiliate is honest about who they are, and their "From address", and if they put something in the email about themselves, then the user will be able to unsubscribe from the affiliate's list. But if the affiliate is dishonest, and hides their true identity, then the affiliate program for the product featured in the email (which will be the product being sold under the affiliate program) becomes responsible. In other words, if you are advertised in the affiliate's email, and the affiliate cloaks who they are, you become responsible. By shifting responsiblity for mislabled email to the companies being advertised in the email, there is an incentive for affiliate program managers to more tightly police their affiliates.

Anne P. Mitchell, Esq.
CEO/President
Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy
http://www.isipp.com/

It's not a law, and it doesn't ban spam.

It bans some email. It doesn't tell you which email; you have to guess. Lots of spam is ok under the statute. It's not limited to bulk email, one is enough. Have you verified everyone on your contacts list isn't actually a michigan minor? How exactly did you verify that? It's not limited to commercial email.
http://www.isipp.com/michigan-email-child-protecti on-registry-law.php
There's the text, which was missing from the main post. Do you understand it? Does your lawyer understand it? Are you in compliance?

The statute is not a law. One of the basic rules of american law established by Marbury v Madison is that an unconstitutional statute is not law.
This statute appears to be unconstitutional for the reasons discussed in Cyberspace v Engler, which stuck down Michigan's previous attempt at banning the internet because of the kiddies.
http://www.cyberspace.org/lawsuit/

Some of the fun provisions in the act:
they can make you come to michigan with all your business records to answer questions.
They can seize your computers.
If they were serious about protecting kids, they wouldn't be charging a fee to check the list.
Oh and it's not just parents who can add names - government officials can add kids' names, probably without telling them.
For fun, check the linking policy.
http://www.michigan.gov/som/0,1607,7-192-26915-208 9--,00.html
It's a shakedown.
It's not constitutional.
It doesn't protect against spam.
It bans some email but not others.
Spam is a real problem. This isn't a real solution.
Personally, getting on the federal and state do not call lists has been great for me.
This isn't like that.
Don't be a dupe.
This is what we fought Reno v ACLU for - to keep the government from shutting down the internet.

While every attempt will be made to secure the Child Protection Registry, registrants and their guardians should be aware that their contact points may be at a greater risk of being misappropriated by marketers who choose to disobey the law.

Here are the best five ideas incorporating machine learning:

1. Based on the user's browsing habits, automatically bookmark the most frequently visited sites, and automatically put them into *multiple* categories (not just one category) to make them easy to find.

2. Create a full-text index in real-time of every page that has been browsed. When the user visits any web page, display a sidebar of "Related previously-viewed pages."

3. A Google-News-like consolidation feature for the user's most-frequently visited news site, automatically highlighting stories of interest based on ones they've previously viewed.

4. Allow user to select "Fewer images like this" or "More images like this" or "Less text like this" and "More text like this" and using Bayesian or other similar filters, automatically block or highlight content. For blocking advertisements, or highlighting certain key passages.

5. Allow the user to browse their own hard drive, and categorize content automatically ("this is a document about lambs" ... "this is a picture of a sunflower") and let them group and search for items. Eg. "Pictures like this" or "Documents about cats."

Please give my Gmail accounts to Gmail for the troops.