E-mail marketing company MindShare Design Inc. has appointed Kelly Molloy Thompson and Peter Popovich to head up its new Standards and Practices Group. The group has rigorous anti-spam policies.
Thompson and Popovich had been executives at the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) in Redwood City, CA. Thompson had been senior manager, RBL-plus; and Popovich had been director of online operations.
Thompson is manager and Popovich is technology analyst of the new unit. MindShare Design is in San Francisco.
"Unsolicited e-mail undermines the effectiveness of our client's legitimate e-mail marketing—simply put, SPAM is just bad business," said Smith, CEO of MindShare, in a statement. "Kelly and Peter have the anti-spam experience and the sound business judgment our customers need to cope with this problem."
The new standards group requires MindShare's clients to agree that all of their recipients have requested e-mail; that the e-mail includes opt-out instructions; and that abuse of MindShare's spam policy may result in termination of services without refund.
When clients use third-party e-mail lists, they must agree to the following:
* All e-mail addresses must be acquired on a strict opt-in basis only.
* Recipients must be advised that their names are being provided to others.
* The third party must be able to provide documentation regarding the validity of the addresses.
* All messages sent to an address obtained from a third party must contain information disclosing the source of the address.
* The content of the messages must be consistent with the disclosure made to the recipients upon initial provision of the e-mail address.
For clients who use co-registration lists, MindShare requires that if the list is purchased or transferred, the MindShare client must either stop mailing to the original list, or that the recipient separately opt-in the second mailing. The initial mailing must contain an introductory message describing how addresses were obtained.
Also, recipients should not receive more than one or two messages a day from a MindShare customer.
Penalties for noncompliance to these rules include $50 per spam complaint, and "clean-up fees" for numerous complaints.
