ietf-asrg
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [Asrg] 7.c Mass Mailers, reliability, and lack thereof

2003-03-27 22:11:21
While I've switched careers (at least temporarily) out of the
high-tech industry, I have worked for a legitimate email marketer.
And I can tell you for a fact that there are people who *do* 
want to receive opt-in email marketing.  They want to be notified
of new homes for sale in their neighborhood, when mortgage rates
fluctuate, what new classical music CDs have come out this week,
and when airfares to Newark have dropped.  Why they want to go to
Newark is beyond me, but they want to know how to get there cheaply.

Many of these people are your Aunt Mildred-- they signed up for AOL
because it was easy to use and Bertha next door usd it.  They aren't
technically literate, and they aren't about to switch ISPs just to
be able to get their weekly Cheez-Wiz recipe fix, but they *do* want 
to get this mail.

Legit email marketers are pretty far away from the millions-of-
addresses CDs; they clients tend to get the signups from their own
websites-- "Want to know when tuna is $.25 off at your neighborhood
grocery store?  Enter your address here."  They don't always follow
anti-spam best practices, and sometimes they even screw up, but in
general, legit email marketers will try pretty damned hard not to send
mail to people who don't want it.

There has to be a solution that allows solicited commercial email to
get through (fairly) reliably, while at the same time stopping
unsolicited mail.  Lumping the two together is counter-productive.

-Patti
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg