FTC Opt out clarification

In early July, the Magilla Marketing newsletter has an article about how email preference centers may now be illegal due to the clarifications published by the FTC. Trevor Hughes of the ESPC is quoted extensively, lamenting about how marketers cannot legally interfere in the unsubscribe process.

The FTC’s opt out clarification “complicates things in that it demands simplicity when simplicity may not be the status quo,” said Hughes. “The two opt-out mechanisms that are permissible [under the law] as we understand it are a reply-based mechanism where you reply to the e-mail and write ‘opt-out’ in the subject line or body of the message, or alternatively, that you click through to a Web page [to opt out]. But it has to be a single Web page.”

Personally, I see no problem with a single web page. As I wrote about last week, forcing recipients to use a preference center to unsubscribe means that people that are not really customers cannot unsubscribe when you start sending them email.
I do not think the FTC rulings mean the end to asking for information, or even the end of offering more choices than just opting out. According to the FTC senders must allow recipients to opt out on the first page, without anything more than the unsubscribe address and the preference. The rules do not say that the marketer cannot link to another page or ask for more information on the unsubscribe page. The rules only say that marketers cannot require more information in order to process the unsubscribe.
Trevor’s complaints seem to me to be nothing more than the lamenting of a marketer that marketers MUST make things difficult for rubes recipients in order to keep recipients on their marketing lists. His statements are extremely recipient unfriendly. Of course, it is his job to advocate for marketers and not consider the experience or desires of recipients.
In the world of non-internet direct marketing, very little consideration has been given to the recipient. Direct marketers live on the mantra that if they send enough to a recipient, eventually the recipient will make a purchase. Sadly, for the poor direct marketers, recipients actually have more power against the marketer online than they do in the real world. Annoying recipients, sending offers they do not want, sending more than they want, all that works against the sender. Smart marketers will learn to adapt. Poor marketers will lament how unfair it all is.

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Lashback tackles opt-in fraud

Last week Lashback posted a three part series on opt-in fraud.
One of the issues they commented on is that suppression lists are being passed around and some mailers are actually spamming them. This is something that used to be common, where spammers were harvesting email addresses from opt-out forms and then spamming the addresses or selling them to other mailers. This is why some ISPs and anti-spammers recommend recipients not unsubscribe from mail that they never subscribed to.
In the last few years there has been conflicting data on the prevalence of harvesting unsub or suppression lists. The FTC determined that there was no risk to recipients from unsubscribing. Lashback is now seeing some spam coming into their test addresses.
Overall, there are people who will continue to be suspicious of unsubscribing from mail they do not expect. This will drive up spam complaints and lower delivery. While responsible mailers are not the cause of the negative perception of email, they are competing with the spammers and scammers and sometimes recipients may not draw distinctions. This is why building relationships and trust over email marketing campaigns is such a critical part of delivery.

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Unsubscribe policies

Our local brewpub has an email list. For various reasons I have multiple addresses on the list and finally decided that getting 4 copies of each mailing was silly. About a week ago, I sent in unsubscribe requests for 3 of the addresses. Today I get another 4 copies of their mailing. That’s not good. Luckily, I know one of the delivery folks at their ESP so I send her an email.
I know unusubscribes can take a few days to process, but it has been seven and CAN SPAM is pretty clear about the 10 day requirement. My first email to their delivery expert is just asking how long unsbs normally take. She responds they take 3 – 4 days. Uh Oh.
I tell her I unsubscribed these 3 addresses (with the unsub links) on 6/10 and received more email this morning. I did tell her that there were multiple subscriptions and they were all legit, but the reasons were really not important. Just that I didn’t want quite so many emails and their unsubscribe process seemed broken.
Now we get to the part where it all goes a wee bit pear shaped. The next email I get back from her explains why I am on so many lists. Fair enough. The more concerning bit is that they have not only gone through their database and unsubscribed all my addresses, but they have also found Steve’s addresses and unsubscribed those too. What the email does not contain is an explanation of why their unsubscribe process broke.
At this point I am a bit annoyed. I did not want all my addresses unsubscribed, just some of them. And the bit about unsubscribing Steve? That’s just silly and unnecessary. Another round of email ensued, pointing out this is bad and please put everything back how it was except please unsubscribe these three addresses I sent originally.
Things are back how they were, although the technical staff is still looking into how their unsubscribe process broke. The initial thought is that during a technology transition they lost some unsubscribe requests.
This whole process has bothered me for a number of reasons. One is the utterly cavalier attitude of the delivery people at the ESP. Their unsubscribe process broke. This is, to my mind, an emergency. ESPs have been fined for broken unsubscribe processes. Two is the process of unsubscribing addresses that belonged to a completely different person. The ESP did explain the policy behind that, sorta.

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New email related blog

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