I made a stop recently to my law firm to do some updating of the estate. While going through the nuances of the Trusts setup for each of the generations I have somehow become a part of, I had a side discussion with one of the new eager associates on the Robert Archer Estate Trust team. He had a knack for technology - and was anxious to show how much he knew.

He pointed out that I should really track what my employee's were writing. He pointed to an article written in 2003 by Patrick Callahan - a member of The Archer Group. It dealt with the Can-Slam law or something similar like that (see article). Apparently there is a loop hole where I could take advantage of buying millions of email addresses of those poor souls who had inadvertenly not "opted out" that Patrick had missed. The Associate stated that "affirmative consent" was something that needed further defining. He stated ... "You may get e-mail addresses from third parties provided that those e-mail addresses were acquired with a clear disclaimer indicating that their e-mail address may be passed on to other parties AND that they were not opted-out from that organization to begin with. Your article does not properly apply to channel oriented business."

Hmm. Something in my heart goes out to these poor associates. These poor chaps have the same problem a former acquainance of mine from Oxford (who went on to be President) had at one point - defining what "is..is". I think I'll stick with what my Patrick says - "be conservative". Do I really want my business associated with the others who send out millions of eMail addresses to the unsuspecting?

The poor associate - he has a few years to go. Let's keep him by the xerox...not by the send button.