Are spammers using unsubscribes only to confirm e-mail addresses? That question came up on Friday during Donnelley Marketing’s Consumer Privacy conference in Aspen.
It started during a speech by Todd Simon, senior vice president of Omaha Steaks. Consumers fear that when they click on the unsubscribe, “they are confirming their addresses,” it was suggested.
But Direct Marketing Association president H. Robert Wientzen denied that this is being done.
“It’s not true,” he said during a general speech that afternoon. “Spammers totally disrespect everything you send except for an order. “
He added that the FTC found in tests that “opting out does not increase e-mail spam,” he continued.
Nevertheless, Omaha Steaks insists that third-party marketers sign strict media-placement agreements.
In a recent consumer survey, 40% of the respondents said they don’ believe opt-out requests work, Simon said. Another 48% said that when they tried to get off lists, it didn’t work.
But that raised the issue of just what is spam. Is it fraudulent e-mail, as the DMA seems to think, or simply unsolicited bulk e-mail?
“Unsolicited means I don’t know why you’re sending me this e-mail,” said Laura Atkins, president of the SpamCon Foundation, during a session later that day. “If you don’t have permission and we have no relationship, then I get mad. You’re just sending to an e-mail address.”
Atkins added, “If the DMA defines it as fraud, it won’t help them at all.”
C. Win Billingsley, a privacy consultant, argued that “some unsolicited e-mail has value to me.” For example, he received an e-mail offering 50% on tickets from the Philadelphia Orchestra. “That’s not spam,” he said.
Billingsley said that the identification definition of spam depends on three criteria:
*Transmission method and inclusion of a valid opt-out.
*The operational policies of the company
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