Announcing the Sales Email Policy (effective 2026-06-01) — A Civil-Law Approach Reclaiming ~50 Hours/Year of Receiver Cost, Open Source
On 2026-06-01, the Institute for Social Vision Design (ISVD) will launch its Sales Email Policy. The regulation is published today (2026-05-19) with a 14-day notice period leading to the effective date. Against the structural asymmetry of ~JPY 0 sender cost / ~JPY 100 receiver cost per message, the regulation creates a civil claim centered on tort under Civil Code Art. 709, reclaiming attention resources for research institutions and knowledge workers. The full suite is open-sourced under CC BY 4.0 + MIT, with paid adoption support also available for other organizations.
The Institute for Social Vision Design (hereinafter "the Institute" or "ISVD") will, on 2026-06-01, place its Sales Email Policy into operation. The Policy creates civil claims for fees and tort damages against unsolicited sales communications sent (i) through the contact form on isvd.or.jp and (ii) directly to published email addresses. The regulation text, an analytical article, and the full reference implementation are released as open source on the same date.
What is being launched
Unsolicited sales emails are commonly understood as "individually minor nuisances," but in aggregate they impose approximately 50 hours per year of attention loss on research institutions and knowledge workers — a structural social problem. The Policy addresses this by transferring receiver-side actual costs to senders on civil-law grounds.
- Effective from: 2026-06-01 (after a 14-day notice period from public release)
- Scope: Unsolicited sales communications via the contact form and via published email addresses
- Fee / damages: JPY 10,000 per message (JPY 20,000 for intentional category misuse)
- Objection: Within 14 days of invoice receipt, in writing (email accepted); receipt triggers immediate claim withdrawal
- Safe harbor: Partnership proposals specifically referencing the Institute's activities, media or official inquiries, and existing transactions are excluded
Why now, why this design
Existing remedies (the Anti-Spam Act, spam filters, blacklists) are symptomatic; they do not alter sender-side economic rationality (~JPY 0 sending cost). The Policy adopts distinct legal bases by submission path, avoiding the structural fragility of an unjust-enrichment (Civil Code Art. 703) construction.
- Contact-form: Civil Code Art. 522 et seq. (contract) + Art. 548-2 (incorporation of standard-form contract)
- Form category misuse: Same as above + Art. 95(3) (limiting mistake defense)
- Out-of-form direct emails: Civil Code Art. 709 (tort) + Art. 1(2) (good faith) + Anti-Spam Act Art. 3 (opt-in policy intent)
Detailed legal construction and itemized damage calculation are available in the analytical article "A Civil-Law Approach to Unsolicited Sales Emails" and in the Annex of the regulation.
Open-sourcing and rollout to other organizations
The full regulation suite is released under a dual license: CC BY 4.0 (documents) + MIT (code), intended as a reference template for research institutions, NPOs, and knowledge workers facing the same issue.
- Regulation text (ja/en): github.com/correlate000/sales-email-policy/policy
- Implementation samples (form consent UI, API validation, PII-redacted Discord notifications): github.com/correlate000/sales-email-policy/implementation
- BigQuery DDL + monthly summary view: github.com/correlate000/sales-email-policy/database
- Operations templates (invoice, demand letter): github.com/correlate000/sales-email-policy/operations
Adoption by other organizations is recommended to involve adaptation to the adopter's business, operational structure, and legal-risk tolerance, with a review by the adopter's own legal counsel. The Institute also offers paid adoption support in three tiers (regulation customization, implementation integration, organization-wide operation).
Call for expert review and endorsement
The regulation is a draft refined by AI (Claude) and the Institute, and contains elements whose ultimate legal validity depends on case-law accumulation. We are continuously soliciting critical reviews and adoption reports from legal practitioners, legal scholars, ethics researchers, sales-domain practitioners, and operators at other organizations. With consent, we will list review content, name, and affiliation on the analytical article and the regulation page.
Press and inquiries
We welcome coverage in any format — interview, contribution, panel, or commentary.
- Media coverage / speaking: [contact form (Media coverage and speaking engagement requests)](/en/contact?subject=Media coverage and speaking engagement requests)
- Adopting organizations: [contact form (Collaboration inquiries)](/en/contact?subject=Collaboration and sponsorship inquiries)
- Expert review submission: contact form
- A Civil-Law Approach to Unsolicited Sales Emails — Analytical article covering the economic structure, legal construction, and damage calculation
- Sales Email Policy — Full text of 12 articles + Annex (damage calculation)
- Privacy Policy — PII-redacted design of Discord notifications (APPI Art. 27 / GDPR Article 6(1)(f))
Institute for Social Vision Design (ISVD) Representative Director: Naoya Yokota isvd.or.jp / Contact form
