WTF: Corporate Transparency Act + Google & Yahoo’s anti-spam changes
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Today I want you to grab a cup of coffee, a little bit of alcohol (why not play a drinking game while ya read through this boring important blog), something comfy like warm socks or a blanket!
Because it's January 2024, and there are a couple of legal things that you need to be aware of that go into effect early this year, for many of us!
The first important thing is for most LLCs registered in the U.S. –there’s a new registry we have to be on; more on that below. 🙄
The second important update is for anyone using Google or Yahoo email services, if you also use that email address for email marketing purposes; they’re changing their anti-spam requirements & if we don’t comply with those changes, your emails are all gonna end up in people’s junk folders. 😳 (Applies for people with AND without custom email addresses.)
So, don't forget to grab your coffee, because you're probably going to want to stay awake for this!! 😉
Issue ❶:
A New Registry for LLCs in the United States
DISCLAIMER: This is for informational purposes only. I do not claim to be a legal expert or an attorney, and this is not legal advice. Please consult a professional in your jurisdiction for more specific information.
The first thing I want you to be aware of is that there is, for most LLCs in the United States, a new registry that we have to... well, register for.
There is a free ebook on this from Creative Law Shop with about 30 pretty pages & covering every possible question you may have about it. I suggest downloading it & skimming through it so you know what’s going on, and who this applies to. That way you’ll know if you’re expected to register or not.
Hint? If you have an LLC registered in the United States, you’re probably required to, so go check out the free ebook to learn more!
What is the registry?
First, for anyone wondering if this is yet another business expense: no, it doesn’t cost anything to register. It's free & only took me about 5 minutes to complete my registration.
The registry is through the U.S. Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN for short.
You've probably never heard of them before, but that’s because they're creating this registry to help control money laundering & other nefarious financial practices regarding ‘bogus’ LLCs, which is primarily why it's affecting us as smaller businesses.
Corporate Transparency Act
The new federal law that’s associated with this new registry, is called the Corporate Transparency Act. It's also called the Beneficial Ownership Reporting Requirement, and also referred to as the Beneficial Ownership Information (BOR, BOI, or CTA for short).
Those are all of the different names that you might hear this being referred to. Basically, there’s a new law that works with this new registry to help track money laundering, –as I said. I won’t get further into specifics because I’m not an attorney/legal expert.
To know which LLCs are laundering money, first they have to have a list of all of us who have ‘that type’ of business, and unfortunately for all of us do-gooders, that’s often an LLC.
And if you're not money-laundering (we can use this as a verb now, right? 😂), you don't have anything to worry about, after being registered.
The new mandate is that we have to register our business with them, and that's it. To register, you’ll go to their official government website: https://fincen.gov/boi.
Again, this is not legal advice so if you’re not sure AT ALL, please go download the free ebook to double check whether or not this applies to you, because there are fines &/or jail time associated with noncompliance.
The Consequences of BOI Noncompliance (Not Registering)
This is a new legal requirement, and it is United States federal law, for those who qualify.
YOU CANNOT IGNORE IT. Eventually they will track you down.
There are substantial civil and criminal penalties associated with noncompliance, including possible jail time of up to two years &/or thousands of dollars in fines.
How to Register for the BOI & What You Need to Know
There are a couple of things that you do need to know before you move forward, and I'm looking at my notes because this is very specific information.
The registry, again, is for most LLCs based in the United States, with very few exceptions. Again, the ebook will list what those are.
If you formed your entity after January 1st, 2024, you have 90 days to register.
If you formed your business prior to January 1st, 2024, you have all of 2024 to register, BUT I encourage you to go ahead and do it now because otherwise you could very easily get busy & totally forget by the end of this year.
I don’t know yet if we will have to register (or renew, etc) every year.
If you want to know how to register, go check out Creative Law Shop’s Instagram. Recently, they shared exactly how to file and register your business through the online system. There are even screenshots with notes on each page of the registry application!
Pro Tip: Open that Instagram post on a desktop computer so you can see the details.
There is also an LLC masterclass replay that CLS’s lead attorney, Paige Hulse, specifically talks about this, and you can watch the replay anytime.
If you want 10% OFF the LLC Masterclass (or anything in the Creative Law Shop), use my affiliate code LAUNCH10 for 10% off anytime, stackable on sale prices too!
Now let's talk about the second issue.
Issue ❷:
Google & Yahoo’s New Anti-Spam Requirements
The second update is going to apply to A LOT more people because this is not specific to people in the United States.
This is specific to anyone that has an email service with either Google or Yahoo!
These changes go into effect in early Feb. 2024, so we must do this before February 2024 wherever possible to avoid problems.
If you've gotten an email about this recently, you might know what I’m talking about, BUT you probably have questions ––because I did too.
Recently I took the workshop from Convertkit, because that is the email marketing service that I use & they were not only sharing what the new requirements are, but also how they are helping us comply.
My email service is through Google Workspace, but I use ConvertKit for email marketing. If you’re not sure what the difference is, check out this post & I’ll break it down for ya!
These requirements apply to us whether or not we’re using Flodesk, MailerLite, MailChimp, Squarespace email campaigns, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ––whatever.
Those services are only “using” your actual email address to send emails for us. These requirements apply to the email host, which (therefore) also apply to the email marketing service since they’re acting as us when they send emails on our behalf.
It’s actually just to help us make our email verified, essentially, so that we can say, yes, we are who we say we are, and we do not send spam emails to our contacts.
Basically, they're just trying to curb the amount of spam that ends up in people's inboxes and crack down on a lot of the spammy bullshit, which I’m happy about!
Who does this apply to?
Anyone using either Google or Yahoo email services (custom domains or free ones),
Free = anyone currently using an @gmail.com or @yahoo.com email address
Paid = anyone using an email address that matches their website, paid through Google or Yahoo, such as Google Workspace (previously called G-Suite)
and anyone who is a “bulk sender” –
Google defines this as people who send 5,000 or more emails per month
Yahoo chose not to specify a number, so we don’t know what their threshold is
either way, 5,000 email/month is actually way easier to hit than you might think!
In plain English, this is going to cause problems for anyone that is not using a custom branded domain (ie: example@yourdomain.com vs example@gmail.com or example@yahoo.com).
I know that a lot of email service providers have let you send emails from an @gmail.com or @yahoo.com email address, ––but not anymore. That's changing!
So that's the first part of this, –the “who.”
If you’re using a personal plan email address through Google or Yahoo (free accounts), you will need to buy a custom domain, and that domain will need to be verified with the company or the email marketing service provider that you're using in order for Google and Yahoo not to list your emails as spam in other people's inboxes.
Why? Because if your emails land in everyone’s spam folders, then why bother sending emails at all, because no one will know you’re sending them. Amiright?!
Understanding the New Email Requirements
Again, Yahoo specifically would not tell us the number of emails sent per month, where they would consider us a “bulk sender,” but Google said 5,000 emails per month. Because Yahoo would not specify a number, it could be actually lower than that.
If your first reaction to that was, …
“I definitely don't send 5,000 emails per month, Katelyn! So this doesn't apply to me.”
–– you may be wrong!
It's actually a lot easier to hit that number than you might think! Let's take a step back.
Let's say you have 500 subscribers on your email list, and you send one email per week. That is 1 email to 500 people, 4 times per month. That means you're sending about 2,000 emails per month JUST with your weekly email.
If Yahoo's threshold is closer to 2,000, ––you've already hit that limit. You're in the threshold, baby.
And that 2,000 doesn't even include the number of emails that you may also be sending in your welcome sequence, delivery of freebies (opt-ins), sales or launch sequences, and more.
So if you're getting new subscribers regularly and you’re sending more than 1,000 emails per month, I’d say go ahead & do this so you won’t freak out X months from now when your spam rate goes through the roof because you’ve hit the threshold & forgot what to do about it.
Okay, so now you’re probably thinking, “Fine, Katelyn. What are we supposed to do then?”
How to Comply with the New Email Requirements
I know this is starting to sound like a lot of total mumbo-jumbo to a lot of you, but hang in there with me!
The new requirements are (as of posting):
You have to pass SPF and DKIM - those are both DNS records that you would add to your custom domain, wherever it’s hosted.
This is one reason why if you don't have a custom domain and you've been sending from an @gmail address, you need to get one because you can't put these records on an @gmail address because that's not your domain, that's Google's, or an @yahoo address because that's Yahoo's.
So the number one thing is that we have to pass those 2 records, meaning they have to exist and they have to be installed correctly.
You're going to need a DMARC record – this is a sending policy for the domain, and there is a generic one you can use until you know more specifically what to add.
You’ll need to add this to your domain’s DNS settings also. If your email marketing or domain host’s support isn’t helpful for generating this record for you, go to this website to get the copy/paste the DMARC record information.
You still have to install it, but it’s installed as a “text” or TXT record on your domain, which is really easy to add, especially if you have your domain through Squarespace.
The domain and the ‘senders’ from email header must be aligned with either the SPF domain or the DKIM domain
You have to ensure that sending domains have valid forward and reverse DNS records.
You have to keep spam rates reported in Google Postmaster Tools below 0.1%.
That is a tenth of a percent!
You have to have one click unsubscribe, and
Must send from our own domain; no more sending from free email accounts
ie: @Gmail.com, or @Yahoo.com
Now, you're probably wondering, “how on earth do you know what your spam complaint report is?” 😳
Don’t worry! That part’s actually very easy. (And free!) If you register through Google Postmaster Tools, you can see how often people are reporting your emails as spam.
And by the way, that just means how many people are literally marking an email as spam.
Once you’ve registered, just set a recurring date on your calendar to check it regularly & make sure your rate stays below 0.1%.
screenshot of my Google Postmaster Tools report, as of posting
My rate for the last 120 days as of recording was 0.0%, as you can see from the screenshot above.
For ConvertKit* users
Because I use ConvertKit for my email marketing service, I’ll also share which things they’ve said they will be doing FOR us, vs which we are still responsible for ourselves.
REMEMBER: these changes go into effect in early Feb. 2024, so we must do this before February 2024 wherever possible to avoid problems. But you can get this done in a weekend, or a day, or a morning even, if you know what you're doing!
If you are using something like MailerLite, FloDesk, ConvertKit, they’re already are aware of this issue, so you can ask them for help or guidance.
For ConvertKit customers, you just have to:
set up a verified sending domain – this will be your SPF and DKIM records added to your domain’s DNS settings.
create a DMARC record, again in your domain’s DNS settings
monitor your complaints in Google Postmaster Tools & keep it LESS THAN 0.1%
stop using gmail.com or yahoo.com to send emails to your list (must use your own domain)
screenshot of where to locate the email records in ConvertKit for Google and Yahoo's new anti-spam requirements
Again, ConvertKit will need to give you the value for each record, but you still have to go on your domain and create it; only then can they verify it exists (& therefore “verify” you own that domain).
Pro-Tip:
In late January 2024, ConvertKit also released a tool that will actually help you write & install these records!! Check the resources linked at the bottom of this post for their support article which has more details.
Below is a screenshot of this (full) list from ConvertKit’s free workshop, held in January 2024. The green check marks are tasks they need us to do for them, and the others are tasks they plan to do for us. Check with ConvertKit to make sure you meet all requirements & don’t need to troubleshoot anything!
screenshot from ConvertKit's free workshop on 2024's new anti-spam requirements from Google and Yahoo
What can you do to avoid spam reports?
BE CAREFUL WHATCHA SEND!
Continue to be very careful about what you send, how often you send it, and who you’re sending it to. Your audience is full of real people, treat them like it!
My complaint rate is very low, because all of my emails have very high-value content (like this post! you should come follow along with me over there too 😉). The emails are usually announcing a new blog post &/or video, and on the off chance that they aren't, they are typically always still sent with an interesting story or something else of value for my audience.
“CLEAN” YOUR EMAIL LIST
Another great thing to do ––and it’s very hard & scary & uncomfortable, I know!–– is to CLEAN YOUR LIST periodically.
We all sign up for shit we don’t end up liking, now and then. 🙋🏻♀️
Once a year, sometimes 2x a year, I’ll send a Workflow (automation or email sequence) to ONLY the inactive (or “cold subscribers”) on my email list, asking if they want to stick around or not. Whoever does not engage with that email sequence, gets removed. 😳
I know. If you’re anything like me, your stomach just fell out your ass & onto the floor. Or maybe your jaw just dropped & you heard a sad trombone play the “womp, womp, womp” notes.
It’s not easy, but it’s SO worth it! I’ve hit ‘delete’ on hundreds of people over the last few years, and I’m sure it’ll be even more in the future. The truth is, NOT removing the people who weren’t engaging with you, is NOT SERVING ANYONE.
It’s potentially junking up their inbox with stuff they’re not interested in, and you may be paying for a bunch of people who consider your emails junk. Those aren’t “your” people!
If you’re curious how that process works, please leave a comment below or on the accompanying YT video, –or hell, send me an email reply (assuming you’re on my list 😉) and tell me! I might just do a future post on it.
So that's the list from ConvertKit.
It's basically the same as the set of requirements. The only difference is ConvertKit's actually going to do a lot of the additional back end stuff for us! (Like forward & reverse DNS, one-click unsubscribe, etc).
Whew! Okay. We made it!
Related Resources
Here are the main resources mentioned in today’s post.
ℹ️ From ConvertKit:
Free workshop replay: https://convertkit.wistia.com/medias/gqwpb6fk1d
Support article about how to add these records easily & automatically: https://help.convertkit.com/en/articles/2502558-verify-your-domain-to-optimize-your-deliverability
Support article about these records: https://help.convertkit.com/en/articles/8538056-gmail-and-yahoo-s-new-requirements-for-2024-and-what-to-expect
ℹ️ From Creative Law Shop:
Free ebook on BOR: https://www.shopcreativelaw.com/bor
LLC MASTERCLASS REPLAY (use my affiliate code LAUNCH10 for 10% off): https://www.shopcreativelaw.com/shop/llc-masterclass
🆘 Website to help generate your DMARC record:
❓ How & where to register for the BOI:
Instagram post by @creativelawshop: https://www.instagram.com/p/C17os6nM9Yf/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
If you need more help, or have other questions, reach out to support anywhere & everywhere related to your email, email marketing &/or your domain manager.
I would recommend reaching out to your email marketing support &/or your domain host first, as they will be easier to contact than Google or Yahoo, and neither Google nor Yahoo will be able to help you implement these requirements anyway.
These are two very un-exciting things to take note of starting in 2024, but they do need to be done quickly and correctly!
I just wanted to make sure that you were aware that ya need to do them, because not doing these things, for many of us, is not an option.
