On Thu, 28 Mar 2002 12:56:56 -0600, Katherine Esposito
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Question: It seems that these is all well and good for the very responsible
>marketers out there. But what about those who are not so responsible?
>What are the percentages of one versus the other?
There's no true way to tell. One can measure the amount of mail they
receive as ethically sent versus unethically sent, but measuring the
number of actual senders is near-impossible. Spammers are not a group to
stand up and be counted, which complicates the problem.
>How many third-party email address providers are completely ethical?
Well, it depends on what you mean by third party. If you subscribe to
the belief, as I do, that for a mailing to be done ethically the
addresses must be gathered ethically by the sender and the sender alone,
then I'd say that it's a minuscule amount.
>DMA Guidelines for Online Commercial Solicitations approved by AIM's
>Council for Responsible E-mail October 2001 approved the DMA Board of
>Directors January 2002.
Let's see - AIM is a function of the DMA. CRE is a function of AIM. So
that statement basically says "DMA Guidelines for Online Commercial
Solicitations approved by itself".
>Marketers may send commercial solicitations online under the following
>circumstances:
>
>The solicitations are sent to the marketers' own customers, or
>Individuals have given their affirmative consent to the marketer to receive
>solicitations online, or
>
>Individuals did not opt out after the marketer has given notice of the
>opportunity to opt out from solicitations online, or
>
>The marketer has received assurance from the third party list provider that
>the individuals whose e-mail addresses appear on that list
>have already provided affirmative consent to receive solicitations online, or
>
>have already received notice of the opportunity to have their e-mail
>addresses removed and have not opted out.
So, to summarize:
It's okay for us to send you e-mail if:
1. You are or were once our customer, or
2. You've given us your e-mail address and asked for us to send you
e-mail, or
3. You never were our customer, and you never asked for e-mail, but we
sent it to you anyway and you failed to tell us to stop, or
4. Somebody who you don't know sold me your name, but said that you
wanted me to send you e-mail - but I won't tell you who it was who
said that to me, or
5. I got your address ghod-knows-how and I told you about it, and you
didn't take the opportunity to tell me not to send you anything.
Under these rules, I can take your e-mail address and sell it to a DMA
member, as long as I say that you want to receive e-mail from that DMA
member. And since I get my money up front, I have precisely zero
transaction risk in doing that. And because the party I've sold your
name to is following DMA rules, you can't touch them.
So, right off the bat, these regulations do nothing for the consumer,
but they give the DMA member something to point to that's really nothing
more than "we'll do what we want - go right ahead and feel comfortable
about it, though, since at least now we'll be honest about it."
>In each solicitation sent online, marketers should furnish individuals with
>a link or notice they can use to:
>�request that the marketer not send them future solicitations online, and
>�request that the marketer not rent, sell, or exchange their e-mail
>addresses for online solicitation purposes.
>The above requests should be honored in a timely manner.
^^^^^^
Should? So, if you ask not to receive any additional e-mail from a DMA
member, and you ask that the DMA member not forward your e-mail and
other PII to every other DMA member, they don't *have* to follow your
request. They just *should*.
>Only those marketers that rent, sell, or exchange information need to
>provide notice of a mechanism to opt out of information transfer to
>third-party marketers.
Well, of course. If you don't pass your address list on, you have no
reason to be so advised.
>Marketers should process commercial e-mail lists obtained from third
>parties using The DMA's e-Mail Preference Service suppression file.
In my line of work, this is called a "self-dealing transaction". So, DMA
members *should* run their purchased lists through a service that the
DMA owns, that forces you to continually re-remove your name from lists.
For each of your e-mail addresses.
>E-MPS
>need not be used on one's own customer lists, or when individuals have
>given affirmative consent to the marketer directly.
Yes, if someone has bothered to add themselves to a global opt-out list,
it couldn't possibly apply to "your list". Of course, reading the
regulations above, it's already established that when a company creates
a list, they need not actually adhere to customer receipt preferences,
anyway. So, now we have a DMA member spamming, only to ignore the fact
that some of those recipients will likely have entered their names in a
list that the DMA member is to use for list-cleansing purposes.
>Solicitations sent online should disclose the marketer's identity, and the
>subject line should be clear, honest, and not misleading. A marketer should
>also provide specific contact information at which the individual can
>obtain service or information. The marketer's street address should be made
>available in the e-mail solicitation or by a link to the marketer's Web site.
So, after you've been spammed, you can find someone to complain to.
These principles are perhaps the pinnacle of policy that exists only to
exist. It doesn't stop spam, it doesn't alter perception of spam, it
just gives spammers something to point at to delay debate and argument.
I agree with the DMA and the FTC on one thing - the industry should
regulate itself. However, I don't believe that opening the net as wide
as possible is the way to go about it.
Ted
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