On Sat, Mar 29, 2003 at 07:16:51PM -0800, pattib(_at_)gammon(_dot_)com wrote
I don't consent to 1) and I don't consent to 2). I do not see any
difference.
Ah, but some people *do* consent to 2), and they would like to receive
the weekly cheez-wiz recipes that they've otped into.
That's the "human-shield effect" that some e-marketers rely on.
Outfits like PennMedia/Shagmail and Topica send newsletters/whatever to
known unconfirmed lists. Like you said, there are some people who do
subscribe to them, but others who don't want the stuff still end up
getting it. The sending outfits rely on the fact that the few willing
subscribers will complain if their ISPs blocking them outright. When you
get *THE SAME CONTENT FROM THE SAME IP ADDRESS* being sent to both willing
and unwilling recipients, it becomes more difficult to block. This tends
to happen most often with "advertiser-supported" newsletters, where the
number of "subscribers" determines how much the mailing company gets
paid by advertisers.
The *ONLY* difference is that the people behind "legitimate marketing
stuff" make campaign contributions, and there's less liklihood of the
"legitimate" spam advertising stuff that's blatantly illegal. Folks,
it's about *CONSENT* not *CONTENT*.
False. The difference is that legitimate email marketers try pretty
hard to only send mail to people who want to receive it. Just because
you don't want to know what's on sale over at piggly wiggly doesn't
mean that I don't. In fact, I subscribe to somewhere between one and
two dozen separate email marketing streams right now.
And I'm sure that you're not interested in a mailing list on the CRUX
distro of linux, plus various other stuff that I subscribe to. I *OPTED
IN* to those lists, versus havimg to *OPT OUT* of a gazillion others.
And if e-marketers adopted *OPT-IN*, we wouldn't have today's problems.
Legitimate honest-to-goodness email marketers exist, and while they
aren't always perfect, they can do a pretty damned good job.
Unfortunately, they're damn hard to find. Companies that have a real
product to sell, and do things in-house, tend to be better. The hired
guns, who get lists of target addresses from customers, aren't in a
position to verify the lists.
I can count on one hand the number of unsolicited messages I've
received from Digital Impact in the last few years, for example,
Does that include all the following aliases?
merchantmail.net
m0.net
digital-impact.com
digitalimpact.com
digitalimpact.net
merchantmail.com
emailexchange.net
emarketingscience.com
responsiblemail.com
mm3.net
mm4.net
mm5.net
mm6.net
mm7.net
mm8.net
mm9.net
Now why would they send out their stuff under an assumed name, or
several assumed names? People are known by the company they keep.
Digital Impact is a member of the ESP ("Email Service Providers")
coalition. Who are these people? According to their press release
at http://www.networkadvertising.org/NAIESPRelease.pdf
Current membership in the ESP Coalition includes all of the major
companies in the email service provider industry: Digital Impact,
DoubleClick, Experian, iMakeNews, Aptimus, Avenue A, BlueHornet
Networks, Britemoon, Cheetahmail, Clickaction, eDialog, Eversave,
ExactTarget, GotMarketing, MindShare Design, Roving Software, Topica,
Virtumundo, and Yesmail.
This is an honour roll of past residents of MAPS RBL, some of whom
have used their money and their lawyers to sue their way out of the RBL.
Not exactly a glowing recommendation.
An opt-in email marketer who tries very hard never to send unsolicited
email, and who responds promptly and correctly if there is an
occasional screw-up, is not a spammer.
The problem is that there are tons of opt-out marketers who claim to
be opt-in. Here is a scenario that has been repeated too many times in
NANAE (news.admin.net-abuse.email)...
CR = Company Representative
NI = NANAE inhabitants
Company rep comes to NANAE
CR> Wahhhh, wahhh, we've been blacklisted. Why ?
NI> Because you spam.
Begin loop (repeats several times)
CR> No we don't.
NI> Yes you do.
End loop
CR> But, but, but, we're double-opt-in, blah, blah, blah
NI> (A NANAE inhabitant, who happens to be a sysadmin, trots out logs of
repeated attempts over the years by the company to deliver email ads
to postmaster@, abuse@, domain admin contact, and a slew of
non-existant addresses)
Explain that.
CR> (Comes back a couple of days later) But, but, but, our customer that
we emailed those out for *SAID* those were double-opt-in addresses
NI> And the National Enquirer says...
CR> (Comes back a couple of days later) But, but, but, the guy who sold
our customer the list of addresses *SAID* they were double-opt-in
NI> And the National Enquirer says...
If I sound cynical, yes I am. I've seen this finger-pointing garbage
as often as a teacher hears "the dog ate my homework". And I'm just as
likely to believe it. E-marketers' reputations are badly damaged, and
they will *NOT* get the benefit of the doubt.
I will grant you, however, that there's a decent-sized grey area in
between hot-teen-lolitas spammers and the best of the bunch.
One more time... it's about *CONSENT*, not *CONTENT*. I don't care
what the unwanted garbage in my inbox is.
--
Walter Dnes <waltdnes(_at_)waltdnes(_dot_)org>
An infinite number of monkeys pounding away on keyboards will
eventually produce a report showing that Windows is more secure,
and has a lower TCO, than linux.
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