Got an application on Facebook? Now you can use it to gather users’ email addresses.
Starting today, Facebook is allowing application developers to request or require email addresses of users — and not proxied emails, either, but the “real” thing. This is a major step forward for companies who want to use their Facebook applications as a lead generator. Of course, there are a few rules:
- Abide by all CAN-SPAM Act rules (one-click unsubscribe, etc.)
- Don’t sell email addresses to third parties
- Don’t use Facebook’s name or image in your emails
- Provide a use/privacy policy to users
- Establish one domain name from which emails will be sent and register it with Facebook
- Facebook reserves the right to allow users to provide proxy emails (fed through Facebook while the real email is hidden) if it thinks a developer is abusing the process
It will be interesting to see how many developers decide to require users to provide their email addresses, and equally interesting to see how many users choose to do so.
Labels: email, Facebook, lead generation, social media marketing