The Responsible Electronic Communication Alliance (RECA) set out its proposed best practices and enforcement guidelines for e-mail yesterday at the net.marketing conference here. Calling unwanted e-mail “a dark cloud over this industry,” Chris Wolf, RECA president, said the proposals include the four elements of the Federal Trade Commission guidelines: notice, choice, access and control. RECA expects to finalize the standards early next year.
In practice, the RECA notice principle would mean that a marketer must tell e-mail recipients what information it is collecting from them, how that information is to be used, and who else may receive it. It also proposes that users have access upon request to their personal information and that they can change it.
RECA would require its members to use a “single opt-in” procedure under which a consumer who wants to be added to an e-mail list checks a box on a Web page agreeing to do so. Then, the marketer sends a “confirmed opt-in” e-mail to the consumer indicating that their name has been added to the list. The consumer need take no additional action. The only exception to this process is a pre-existing business relationship, according to the guidelines.
The enforcement procedures proposed “go further than HR 3113,” the Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act, passed by the House of Representatives last week. RECA would issue a “seal of approval” when members joined the group and agree to comply. “If a business uses the RECA seal of approval, it must comply with the guidelines if it doesn’t, it will be ejected from RECA,” Wolf said.
But complaints would not automatically result in ejection. “Due process is a part that will distinguish us. We won’t make ad hoc decisions,” Wolf said.
Members told DIRECT Newsline that they are discussing having a third-party organization in charge of enforcement, such as Ernst & Young. The third party would work — sometimes along with RECA — to resolve the complaint. Complaints that couldn’t be resolved would be subject to an appeals process.
“By having an external third party, it adds authority to the due process,” said David McCay, vice president of corporate marketing at Netcentives, a RECA member.
What compels RECA’s marketing clients to comply? “Since all e-mail delivery companies are part of RECA, and my company threatens to release them, where are they going to go?” said Geoff Smith, director of client programs at ClickAction Inc.
Already, the 16 application service providers and list companies that founded RECA are following the spirit, if not the letter, of the proposed standards, said members.
Still, with federal legislation looming on the horizon, how will the group persuade lawmakers that e-mail providers and marketers can regulate themselves? RECA does not yet have a lobbying arm, but congressmen have a reason to talk to RECA, said Peter Arnold, executive director of the group, because “both parties want to be perceived as Internet-friendly.”
The Direct Marketing Association does have a lobbying arm for Internet issues, the Association for Interactive Media (AIM). Pointing out that he was lobbying against a provision of the Electronic Mail Act on Capitol Hill last week, Ben Isaacson, executive director of AIM, said, RECA may work on “short-term objectives, but AIM’s objectives are macro.”
AIM’s members include both traditional direct marketers and pure-play Internet marketers, and AIM has to represent a wide range of interests, he added, in a conversation with DIRECT Newsline, later in the day.
Many RECA members also belong to the DMA and don’t plan to resign their membership. “I think the DMA has been slow to react,” said Regina Brady, vice president of partners & strategic development at Flonetwork, echoing other members’ private observations. “That’s one reason RECA came together. But Bob Wientzen wants to find a way to bridge the two groups.”
Privacy groups, such as the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS), which maintains the Realtime Blackhole List, will not be invited to join RECA. “RECA was founded to be business trade association, but we do we look forward to talking with privacy groups,” said Arnold.
Nick Nicholas, former executive director of MAPS, said RECA’s confirmed opt-in proposal “is an opt-out policy. Anyone can go to a Web site and put anyone’s e-mail name in,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that person has opted in to be put on that list.”
Nicholas added he was in favor of RECA’s notion of due process, though. MAPS’ lack of due process “is one reason I left.”
Nicholas is working with Rosalind Resnick, CEO of e-mail service provider NetCreations, in the formation of the E-mail Standards Working Group. Resnick’s camp is developing e-mail standards that incorporate MAPS’ rule of verified opt in. “The difference between the two groups is that we have the inclusion of MAPS,” Resnick said from New York.
“We look forward to working together with RECA to create a winning solution for consumers, marketers and privacy advocates alike,” she added.
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