While your kids were sleeping last week, two no-email registries went into effect. And barely anyone in the commercial email industry is paying any more attention than the children the laws intend to protect.

Both Michigan and Utah's voters approved laws a year ago requiring both states to create a no-email registry for children similar to the no-call registry. These registries are just for children's emails but can also include any email a child has access to (i.e. family email addresses) and can include entire blocks of school addresses.

These laws cover all commercial email that includes either an advertisement, or a link to an advertisement, "for a product or service that a minor is otherwise legally prohibited from accessing, such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, prescription drugs, or adult-rated material." Punishments include imprisonment of up to three years, or a fine of $30,000, or both.

According to Anne P. Mitchell, a professor of Internet law, "These registries are going into affect next week, and absolutely nobody realizes it. We've talked with several top tier email marketing firms, and email service providers, and they were all just stunned to learn that they need to start scrubbing their mailing lists against these registries next month or face criminal sanctions!"