Light blogging for a while

Sorry for the lack of substantive posts, things seem to have gone completely out of control and I’m not finding a lot of extra cycles to sit down and blog. I’ll try and get some stuff up this week, but I’m also getting ready for MAAWG and the sessions I’m a part of there.
There was an interesting post by Romer over on his personal blog. If you don’t know, Romer helps maintain one of the commercial mail filters. He recently got spammed by one of his vendors and talked about how this is probably not the best idea. Al adds his own take on companies assuming permission. I’ve talked about taking permission in the past but haven’t touched on things like “spamming the guy who runs the filter.”
You’d be surprised, or maybe you wouldn’t, about how many people who run filters for large organizations get spammed regularly. You wouldn’t be surprised to find out that those people do factor in their own personal spam load when adjusting their organizational filters.

Brand engagement in social media
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Social networks and bulk email

There’s been a bit of a commotion on Twitter and over at J Caldwell’s blog about Al’s reaction to someone harvesting his address off LinkedIn and then adding that email address to his company’s marketing / newsletter database. Al objected to getting the mail, the person who did this shot back that it wasn’t spam, there was lots of arguing both over twitter and on the blog post.
This also recently happened when a well known email marketer took all 500+ of his Linked In contacts (including me) and added them to his corporate Christmas card list. His behaviour also created a bit of a stir, although it was a little less public.
That mailing was interesting, because a number of people who received the card thought this was the Best Use of Email, EVER! Some of them went so far as to opine “How could ANYONE not like this mail? What are they, Scrooge?” Well, actually, I found the mail irrelevant and a bit annoying. I have to admit I would have been a lot less annoyed if I knew this was a one time thing. However, in order to comply with CAN SPAM he included an opt-out. Which lead to some head scratching: have I been added to their full list? Am I going to get their newsletter from now on? Do I have to opt-out? What was he thinking?
Watching both of the above situations go down I have come up with a list of things you must consider when sending bulk mail to people who have connected with you on social networks.

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Legitimate mail in spamfilters

It can be difficult and frustrating for a sender to understand they whys and wherefores of spam filtering. Clearly the sender is not spamming, so why is their mail getting caught in spam filters?
I have a client that goes through this frustration on rare occasions. They send well crafted, fun, engaging content that their users really want. They have a solid reputation at the ISPs and their inbox stats are always above 98%. Very, very occasionally, though, they will see some filtering difficulties at Postini. It’s sad for all of us because Postini doesn’t tell us enough about what they’re doing to understand what my client is doing to trigger the filters. They get frustrated because they don’t know what’s going wrong; I get frustrated because I can’t really help them, and I’m sure their recipients are frustrated because they don’t get their wanted mail.
Why do a lot of filter vendors not communicate back to listees? Because not all senders are like my clients. Some senders send mail that recipients can take or leave. If the newsletter shows up in their inbox they may read it. If the ad gets in front of their face, they may click through. But, if the mail doesn’t show up, they don’t care. They certainly aren’t going to look for the mail in their bulk folder. Other senders send mail that users really don’t want. It is, flat out, spam.
The thing is, all these senders describe themselves as legitimate email marketers. They harvest addresses, they purchase lists, they send mail to spamtraps, and they still don’t describe themselves as spammers. Some of them have even ended up in court for violating various anti-spam laws and they still claim they’re not spammers.
Senders are competing with spammers for bandwidth and resources at the ISPs, they’re competing for postmaster attention at the ISPs and they’re competing for eyeballs in crowded inboxes.
It’s the sheer volume of spam and the crafty evilness of spammers that drives the constant change and improvement in spamfilters. It’s tough to keep up with the spamfilters because they’re trying to keep up with the spammers. And the spammers are continually looking for new ways to exploit recipients.
It can be a challenge to send relevant, engaging email while dealing with spamfilters and ISPs. But that’s what makes this job so much fun.

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Email and law in the news

A couple things related to the intersection of email and law happened recently.
The 6th circuit court ruled that the government must have a search warrant before accessing email. The published opinion is interesting reading, not just because of the courts ruling on the law but also because of the defendant. Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals toyed with spamming to advertise their product as a brief search of public reporting sites shows. The extent and effort they went to in order to stay below the thresholds for losing their merchant accounts is reminiscent of the effort some mailers go through to get mail through ISP filters.
The other bit of interesting reading is the Microsoft motion to dismiss the case brought against them by Holomaxx. It is a relatively short brief (33 pages) and 3 of those pages are simply a listing of the relevant cases demonstrating ISPs are allowed to filter mail as they see fit. 2 more pages are dedicated to listing the relevant Federal and State statutes. I strongly encourage anyone considering suing any large ISP to to read this pleading. These lawyers understand email law inside and out and they are not going to mess around. They also have both statute and case law on their side. They point this out before the end of page 1:

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