Do compliance laws (like CAN-SPAM) apply differently to transactional emails?

Yes, compliance laws treat transactional emails differently from marketing:

CAN-SPAM exempts transactional emails from certain requirements:

No unsubscribe link required (though often included for goodwill). Less strict on sender identification. No restrictions on sending to opted-out recipients for transactional purposes.

However, to qualify as transactional:

Primary purpose must be transactional, not promotional. Marketing content must be secondary and clearly subordinate. The email must relate to a transaction the recipient initiated.

GDPR and other laws still require lawful basis for processing, but fulfilling a contract (the transaction) provides that basis for transactional communication.

Adding excessive marketing content can reclassify an email as commercial, losing transactional exemptions.

Transactional exemptions are not loopholes. Abusing them by stuffing marketing into transactional emails risks legal trouble and recipient trust.