A transactional or relationship message is any message that has one or more of the following primary purposes: 1) facilitating the completion of a commercial transaction between the sender and the recipient; 2) providing product warranty, recall, safety or security information; 3) providing information regarding a subscription, membership, account, loan or comparable ongoing commercial relationship; 4) providing information related to an employment relationship or benefit plan in which the recipient is a participant; and, 5) delivering goods or services, including product updates, that the recipient is entitled to receive under the terms of a transaction that the recipient previously has agreed to enter into with the sender.
If the e-mail contains both commercial content and content that falls under the FTC's transactional or relationship message category, it would be considered commercial if either a) the recipient concludes from its subject line that the message advertises or promotes a product or service or b) the transactional or relationship content is not located at or near the beginning of the e-mail.
The FTC's Final Rule defines the relevant criteria for determining when the primary purpose of an e-mail is commercial by outlining four categories of e-mail messages: Transactional or Relationship Content Only: Transactional or relationship messages are only subject to the CAN-SPAM Act's requirement that they contain accurate header information, an accurate originating domain and an accurate e-mail address in the "from" line of the message.
Transactional or relationship messages are expressly excluded from the definition of commercial electronic mail messages and are therefore minimally affected by the Act.
It offers the following guidance on how to apply them: Category 2 Analysis: If the newsletter satisfies any of the elements of the transactional or relationship message definition, such as delivery of goods or services that the recipient previously agreed to receive, then it would not be considered to have a commercial primary purpose unless (1) a recipient would reasonably interpret the subject line to conclude that the message advertises or promotes a product or service; or (2) the transactional or relationship message does not appear at or near the beginning of the body of the message.
