GOODMAIL HAS REJECTED more than three-quarters of the companies that have applied for its Certified Email program, according to chief executive Richard Gingras.
Gingras said most rejections come about because applicants' spam-complaint rates are too high. But he declined to specify what constitutes too high a rate.
“Our criteria are very rigorous and a lot of folks out there just don't qualify,” he said. “Most senders say they're on AOL's enhanced whitelist and they're not.”
AOL maintains two so-called whitelists of senders that meet certain unpublished good-behavior criteria such as low spam complaint rates, and as a result, reportedly have an easier time getting their e-mail delivered intact. The enhanced whitelist is the stricter of the two.
Meanwhile, documents show that Goodmail's Certified Email program allows senders to have more than twice the rate of spam complaints than AOL's enhanced whitelist.
AOL's standard whitelist requires that senders maintain a spam complaint rate of less than three per thousand, according to a PowerPoint presentation AOL made to e-mailers recently. The enhanced whitelist requires e-mailers to “aim for” one complaint per thousand, a detail also noted in AOL's presentation.
Goodmail requires senders to maintain a spam complaint rate of fewer than 2.2 per thousand, AOL stated. As a result, it would seem that a Goodmail-certified e-mailer can have more than double the complaint rate of someone on the enhanced whitelist and be guaranteed to have its e-mail delivered.
Gingras argued that comparing the complaint-rate requirements of the two schemes does not paint an accurate picture.
“Using a single number to compare disparate systems for processing legitimate messages is akin to comparing apples to avocados,” he said via e-mail.
AOL announced in January that it was adopting Goodmail's system under which bulk e-mailers can pay to have their e-mail certified as non-spam and guaranteed to be delivered with a seal of approval into AOL's inboxes with graphics and links intact.
Among the applicants are “very well-known companies that have brands they want to protect,” Gingras said. They range from “the media space, to the financial services space, to the retailing space,” he added.
The New York Times has had its newsletter certified, he noted.
AOL's announcement brought a firestorm of criticism, including a recent blast from liberal activist group Moveon.org and several other nonprofits, including conservative group RightMarch.org.
These organizations contend that AOL's plan will create a two-tiered e-mail system in which organizations that pay get preferential treatment.
In response, AOL said it will guarantee free e-mail delivery, with graphics and links intact, to nonprofits that abide by AOL's anti-spam policies. The company also said it will pay the sign-up costs for nonprofits to have their e-mail authenticated.
Gingras said that as a result of the national controversy over AOL's adoption of Goodmail's service, the number of applicants has been as much as 10 times higher than he anticipated.
“There's no question that this level of awareness has drawn a tremendous amount of interest,” he said. “Given the strict standards that we have for qualification, most [Certified Email applicants] won't qualify. A lot of these are prospect marketers and we don't support prospect marketing.”
Goodmail will put its stamp of approval only on e-mail to applicants' existing customers or existing members of the applicants' organizations, said Gingras. It also will reject any firm that's been in business less than a year, he continued.
John Rizzi, the chief executive of e-mail service provider e-Dialog, said one reason for Goodmail's high rejection rate may be that e-mailers with the most questionable marketing practices are lining up first.
Rizzi said that three-quarters of his clients surveyed after an e-Dialog Webinar addressing the AOL-Goodmail matter said they were “taking a wait-and-see approach” to the scheme.
“We don't know enough yet,” said Rizzi. “We don't know the hard price of this program. There's been a disappointingly incomplete story told by AOL and Goodmail so far.”
Gingras has pegged the price at a quarter of a cent per e-mail, but has also said the price could change.
E-Dialog's Rizzi contends that although the jury is still out on Goodmail's service, a quarter of a cent per e-mail is negligible.
Assuming that cost, an average firm that mails twice a month will pay 6 cents a year per address, according to Rizzi.
“That's 6 freakin' cents,” he said. “If you break it down per recipient, it's nothing. I think anybody who looks at that and says, ‘Hmm, my customer isn't worth 6 cents to me,’ ought to look in the mirror and see a spammer looking back.”
