Delivery news April 2009

Penton Media’s Marketing Practices
Ken Magill responds to critics of Penton’s email marketing practices in an article out today. His article is quite open and points out that some of the things Penton does are not good.

A couple answers weren’t pretty. For one thing, I found out we don’t have a permission box asking people if they want to receive third party ads. We simply start sending the ads. Not good.
But I also found out that our e-mail file is the heart of our business. Among other things, it drives ad revenue outside the newsletters and Webinar traffic. Space ads in the newsletters and on the Web sites don’t drive enough revenue to keep our business afloat.
However, I also found out readers can opt out of the third party ads—though I hope they won’t—and still receive the newsletters to which they are subscribed.

The issues surrounding how to support a company while not throwing so much ad copy in the face of readers is something that many, many businesses are struggling with. Having a company the size and influence of Penton Media acknowledge the challenges and why they made some of the decisions they made is both refreshing and enlightening.
California state law not preempted by CAN SPAM
Venkat posts about a case in California (Asis Internet Servs. v. Consumerbargaingiveaways, LLC, et al., N.D. Cal. Case No. 08-04856 WHA) where the judge ruled that Asis did have standing to bring a spam claim against Consumerbargains and that the CA law was not preempted by CAN SPAM in this case. Based on my reading, this may be a successful case in that the Plaintiff’s have paying customers and can demonstrate the costs associated with blocking spam. Furthermore, the mail in question seems to be recognizable as spam rather than a forgotton submission.
Canada proposes anti-spam legislation
Others are following the new Canadian anti-spam legislation in detail but this is a bill that bears watching. Unlike CAN SPAM, this bill actually prohibits unsolicited email marketing. It also allows private right of action by individuals and internet service providers, bans the “unwanted installation of computer programs in the course of commercial activity” and limits claims that can be made online. Matt Vernhout has a comprehensive summary of the email portions of the bill.

Related Posts

TWSD: breaking the law

I tell my clients that they should comply with CAN SPAM (physical postal address and unsubscribe option) even if the mail they are sending is technically exempt. The bar for legality is so low, there is no reason not to.
Sure, there is a lot of spam out there that does not comply with CAN SPAM. Everything you see from botnets and proxies is in violation, although many of those mails do actually meet the postal address and unsubscribe requirements.
One of my spams recently caught my eye today with their disclaimer on the bottom: “This email message is CAN SPAM ACT of 2003 Compliant.” The really funny bit is that it does not actually comply with the law. Even better, the address it was sent to is not published anywhere, so the company could also be nailed for a dictionary attack and face enhanced penalties.
It reminds me of the old spams that claimed they complied with S.1618.

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Confirmed unsubscribe

Whatever one might think about confirming opt-ins I think we can all agree that requiring someone to jump through hoops and confirm an unsubscription request will just annoy that person.
Today I attempt to opt-out from a discussion list. It’s one I *thought* I had opted out of previously, but I could find no record of the request anywhere. OK. So I imagined unsubscribing, I’ll just unsub again and keep better records.
After digging through the headers, I find the unsub link and dutifully mail off my unsubscribe request. I then receive an email that requires I click on a link to confirm my unsub request. This causes me to grumble a bit. I have heard all the arguments about forged unsub requests and the various reasons this is good practice. I believe none of them. Requiring people to confirm an unsubscription request is bad practice.
In this case, the mailing list is a discussion list so there is no CAN SPAM violation. However, I know that some commercial mailing lists have also implemented confirm your opt-out request. For commercial mailing lists, this is a CAN SPAM violation. It’s also just plain rude. If someone says, “Stop!” then you should stop, no questions asked

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Negative branding, part 2

Last week I commented on negative branding in email. One of the comments on that post was an advertisement for a company called WrapMail. In the course of attempting to determine if this was spam or a real comment, I checked out their website. While the comment itself may not be spam, and it may not be providing services to spammers, the entire business model strikes me as a delivery nightmare.
Briefly, once you sign up with this company, you set your mail client to use their SMTP server. As all of your mail goes through their server is it “wrapped” with a HTML template of your choosing. All of your email is now branded with that template, allowing you to formally advertise your business even during the course of standard business communications.
There are multiple ways this can negatively impact a specific brand.

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