The Direct Marketing Association’s decision not to allow Internet service providers to participate in its e-mail preference service, debuting in January, has disappointed one anti-spam group.
The group, the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail, a volunteer organization based in cyberspace, met with high-level members of the DMA one year ago in Washington, DC to identify consensus recommendations for e-mail marketing.
While the group agreed upon, and has moved forward on, a number of issues, one issue that remains a point of contention is the DMA’s E-MPS.
Ray Everett-Church, co-founder and board member of CAUCE, said the group agreed upon the creation of a global opt-out suppression file free to consumers that allows both business entities and individuals to perform a one-time, global opt-out from unsolicited commercial bulk e-mail.
However, while the DMA has permitted businesses–blocking entire Internet domains–to participate in E-MPS, ISPs have been restricted, said Pat Faley, the DMA’s vice president of ethics and consumer affairs.
Everett-Church said CAUCE plans to take the issue to Capitol Hill. “This is the most disappointing aspect of [the meeting] after we went to great lengths to explain why service providers have a right to control their private property. For the DMA to, in essence, declare that [ISPs] have no right to control their own private property is astonishing and extremely disappointing.”
Faley said employers should have the right to control their own domains and what communications their employees receive while at work. However, she added, ISPs “are different” and likened ISP use of a suppression file to “mass censorship.”
ISPs have public e-mail addresses, some with millions upon millions of subscribers, and “we don’t think that one ISP should be able to have the say for 18 to 20 million consumers,” she said. “We believe in individual consumer choice and we make an exception where a business would control what their workers do during business hours.”
Everett-Church said unsolicited commercial bulk e-mail is costly for ISPs to receive and creates an unnecessary level of frustration for subscribers.
“For people to suddenly start receiving [unsolicited] e-mail messages really sets up a level of distrust and drives consumers to be more suspicious in dealing with business on the Internet,” Everett-Church said. “That’s ultimately the greatest danger of people using unsolicited e-mail, reducing consumer trust in the medium.”
Faley said most ISPs currently monitor their systems routinely and can detect the influx of large numbers of bulk e-mail. “[ISPs] already have systems in place which are fairly effectively looking at bulk e-mail. ISPs don’t need an e-mail preference service.”
Members of CAUCE plan to pursue legislative action to give ISP’s the right to participate in global opt-out services such as E-MPS.
“Were taking it to Capital Hill and explaining to members of Congress why service providers have private property rights and why those rights should be respected and why marketers should be required to recognize the preferences stated by service providers not to receive massive quantities of unsolicited e-mail,” Everett-Church said.
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