From: Nick Phillips
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 2:02 AM
<...>
As an example, a company is intending to launch a new product.
They publicise it in advance on their website. They invite
visitors to the site to fill in their email address and hence
be notified when the product is actually available. It will be
a one-off mailshot. Perhaps they log the IP addresses from which
the requests are received, along with an accurate time.
Should they really then have to send out a mail to confirm that
the user really wants them to send the other mail in a couple of
months' time?
I don't think so; it just wouldn't be a reasonable and sensible
thing to do.
Interesting point. That's what I like about this list: people like to
think here.
It does seem silly, even laughable, at first thought, for a company to
have to send off a confirmation message requesting the right to send the
party an email. A recipient with a good sense of humor might say, "I
gave you permission to send me one email and you just did, so bye now".
There is a practical reason why the company may wish to do exactly that,
even though it seems wasteful. How many of those who signed up will
forget, two months later, that they made the request? Some of those
folks will get upset and report the product announcement as spam. The
company will be in a far better position to defend itself if it has a
confirmation message in hand for every complaint, as compared to a web
log that lists a bunch of dynamic IP address.
If an IP resolves to an Earthlink dialup pool, that narrows it down to
perhaps 100,000 possible email addresses, depending on the size of the
city. In other words, it's worthless. It puts any reputation auditor
(or blacklist operator) in an impossible position when reviewing a
complaint. The company has cooked its own goose. The complainant
produces a message that clearly came from the company, but the company
has insufficient evidence to show it is was solicited. OTOH, if there
is a confirmation message, the auditor has little choice but to dismiss
the complaint, even if the company has a history of spamming. I wonder
how much of the animus that bulk emailers have toward blacklists has
resulted from exactly this scenario? If true, this is a result of their
choice to use unconfirmed opt-in, though I'm sure they don't see it that
way.
Another possible reason to request confirmation for a one-time mailing
of advertising is that it is possible that someone else has subscribed
you, or that you mistyped your address and the typo is someone else's
real address. In this case, the mail really would be unsolicited.
While this is not under the company's control, it is simple matter for
them to eliminate such mischief and mistakes by confirmation via email.
The problem of accepting web sign-ups without confirmation via email is
that you really have no way to tie the party at the other end of the
http link with a particular email address.
It's easy to do the confirmation in real-time while the party is still
in the browser. As soon as they hit the button, tell them, "We just
sent an email to your address to confirm that the address is correct.
As soon as you hit the 'confirm' link contained in the message, we'll
add your address to the list for notification." A confirmation request
is a polite, non-commercial message (hopefully). Most people don't feel
these are intrusive.
--
Seth Goodman