Digital + Social

From the just-when-you-think-you

Tech Web site CircleID.com ran a blog post by Meng Wong, best known as the lead developer of e-mail authentication scheme SPF, in which Wong predicts eliminating phishing will require e-mail box providers to move to a whitelist-only model:

“Just so you know where I’m coming from, the foremost concern in my mind is this: The final solution to the phishing problem requires that people use a whitelist-only, default-deny paradigm for e-mail.

Alliance Data Systems Corp.

In what is believed to be industry first, Petco Animal Supplies is testing to see if including customer-written product reviews in its outbound e-mail campaigns boosts conversion-to-sale rates.

The Georgia state Senate last week took another step toward helping wipe legal, adult content out of the e-mail marketplace by passing The Georgia Child, Family and School Communications Protection Act.

The bill

Alliance Data Systems Corp. has announced that its Epsilon unit will acquire DoubleClick E-mail solutions for $90 million.

The deal will give Epsilon a stronger presence in the retail, travel, publishing and consumer-packaged-goods markets. It will also give Epsilon 400 more clients, such as J. Crew, Patagonia, Unilever and Proctor & Gamble.

For a company that no one heard of until recently, Goodmail sure was able to stir up the Net Nannies with its announcement that AOL was going to start using its certified e-mail service and charge bulk mailers for guaranteed delivery of their blasts with the graphics and links intact.

With all the empty-headed, alarmist crap that was published last week about the AOL-Goodmail announcement, it was refreshing to run across a thoughtful assessment of the news from permission-marketing guru Seth Godin on his blog:

There has been a lot of buzz in the national media lately about GoodMail’s Certified Email solution. Some are touting it as a solution to the spam problem. The reality from my perspective is that GoodMail is a bad solution.

Richard Gingras says he suddenly knows what it’s like to be a politician or a celebrity. The cofounder/CEO of Goodmail Systems says he’s only trying to help commercial bulk e-mailers attain higher open rates while allowing consumers to once again trust that the e-mails they receive are from the stated recipient.