This week, we get a veritable stupidity grand slam from UK technology publication Silicon.com.
That’s right, triple the amount of stupidity normally found in e-mail-marketing-related commentary by non-marketing publications is on display in an article published last week headlined: “UK government looks at revising flawed anti-spam law.” The subhead reads: “Hate to say ‘we told you so’ but…”
According to Silicon.com, the UK government “has admitted it may be forced to strengthen the much maligned anti-spam legislation introduced in 2003.”
The problem with UK anti-spam legislation, according to Silicon.com, is that while marketers must get permission before e-mailing individuals, the law contains an exemption for business-to-business e-mail under which one business can e-mail another unless the recipient opts out of future mailings. The implication is that if businesses are required to get explicit permission before sending another business e-mail, the spam problem will significantly diminish.
Silicon.com redeemed itself somewhat with an opinion piece the next day admitting that stronger UK legislation would have limited effect outside its borders. The piece also rightly pointed out that the current maximum 5,000 British pounds—about $9,200—UK law permits spammers to be fined is laughable.
The second opinion piece also inexplicably avoided the opt-in/opt-out issue.
Good thing. Anti-spammers have been beating the opt-in drum for years. When the opt-out-based federal Can Spam Act of 2003 went into effect in the U.S. on Jan. 1, 2004, anti-spammers predicted that an avalanche of spam would emanate from American businesses no longer shackled by a Byzantine patchwork of state legislation.
“By signaling to the world that spamming is now legal in the USA, we believe that the United States is inviting a tsunami of spam from Asia,” says a letter that still posted on anti-spam site Spamhaus.org from Dec. 20, 2003. “By requiring that American citizens read through and respond to every spam to 'opt-out' of ever-more mailings they did not opt-in to [sic], we also believe that millions will find their addresses sold on as ‘people who read spams’ and will find themselves endlessly on yet more lists.”
One would think the fact that Spamhaus’s prediction hasn’t happened would have embarrassed its operators into taking the letter down by now. But then, one would be mistaken.
Yes, spam is flooding the Internet, but not as a result of the actions of law-abiding businesses. One hundred percent of the commercial e-mails from mainstream marketers in a recent study by EmailLabs contained Can-Spam-required working opt-out links
Moreover, before Can Spam went into effect, the Federal Trade Commission determined that 66% of opt-out links in commercial e-mail didn’t work. A post-Can-Spam FTC study last year determined that 89% of retailers honored opt-out requests.
These figures aren’t evidence of a spam-happy American business community. And it’s difficult to imagine the British business community is more trigger-happy than its U.S. counterpart.
The real spammers—the people who try to cram our inboxes with penis- and breast-enlargement pitches—are increasingly hijacking unsuspecting people’s computers and using them to drown the Internet with their filth.
Analyst firm Gartner has estimated that so-called zombie machines are responsible for up to 70% of spam.
In a recent study by e-mail service provider Silverpop, both European and American marketers cited trade shows as the second best way to grow their e-mail files.
Marketers who e-mail in Europe can kiss this method goodbye if some myopic editors and UK bureaucrats get their way.
Message to the editorial staff at Silicon.com: In most industries, when people put their business cards in fishbowls at vendor booths at tradeshows, yes, they’re trying to win the iPod raffle the company is dangling as an incentive, but they also realize they may be contacted and, gasp! pitched on the company’s services. And guess what? Someone who has given their business card at a trade show has not given explicit permission to be contacted. Maybe you should go talk to the guys in circulation and ad sales and see what they think of the idea that they shouldn’t be able to contact highly qualified leads via e-mail without getting explicit permission first.
The problem with UK anti-spam legislation, according to Silicon.com, is that while marketers must get permission before e-mailing individuals, the law contains an exemption for business-to-business e-mail under which one business can e-mail another unless the recipient opts out of future mailings. The implication is that if businesses are required to get explicit permission before sending another business e-mail, the spam problem will significantly diminish.
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