Flaming/Spamming

A recent incident put my organization "close to the flames" due to the irresponsible acts of an Internet service provider and a mass E-mail marketer. Following is a recount of the incident, which will guide you in the implementation of responsible Internet-based marketing programs.

The problems originated with an Internet service provider located in Miami who arbitrarily decided to use the domain name of "webconnect.com". This "webconnect" has no relationship whatsoever to WebConnect, which is the Internet advertising venture of Worldata's ownership. So, the first problem identified was on the misuse of the "WebConnect" name, which is officially registered and owned by Worldata. They should have checked first to see if the name was in use.

The second problem was that the Miami-based ISP was hosting the activities for "Bubba" who is in the business of promoting pornographic, triple-X chat lines and products. Bubba promoted his services by spamming unsolicited E-mail addresses. The combination of these two problems resulted in the "real" WebConnect to be the recipient of volumnous flame mail, since individuals incorrectly assumed that "webconnect.com" was the parent company of the ISP. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a "flame" is an irate response to a spam (unsolicited broadcast E-mail), an action in a chat room, or a posting in a newsgroup. It is centered around a breach of "net-etiquette." As one angry recipient writes "As you can see from the full headers I have included, this message was received at my abcxyz@company.com account. I use that account only for reading and posting to USENET. It is very safe to assume that this user {Bubba} is either running a robot that strips E-mail addresses out of USENET groups, or this user purchased a list of E-mail addresses from someone who does run robots that strip E-mail addresses out of USENET groups. I don't recall at any time that my posting to USENET groups implies consent to receive E-mail from this user. Don't you agree that I should be able to post to USENET groups without being harassed by this user? I did not request the information I received. I do not appreciate this E-mail."

There are several programs that are becoming popular that literally "steal" E-mail addresses from commercial on-line services and newsgroups. I recently received an E-mail solicitation for such a product. I'll dissect key components {my comments will be in brackets} of the message, since there is a wealth of information on what we, as professional direct marketers, should avoid.

{Subject text} ROCKET Your Way To Wealth In Cyberspace. Using Mass E-mail provides great rewards for very little effort, time or money IF YOU KNOW what you're doing. If you don't know what you're doing, This is what will happen: Your Internet provider will SHUT YOU DOWN {Exactly, a responsible ISP will halt the batch processing of unsolicited/non opt-in E-mail}. Your 800 phone bill WILL SOAR with nuisance calls {Yes, you'll get complaints!} Your E-mail box will EXPLODE with mail bombs {That's correct -- responsible individuals will use the "reply" feature and ask you to STOP!}

Product XYZ also has built in "E-mail Cloaking" to allow you to use your own local ISP for sending your mail with, avoiding having to search for bulk friendly ISP's or other undesirable means to accomplish mass mailings. {A legitimate marketer should not have to "cloak" themselves.} Generate AOL addresses from captured AOL chat rooms. AOL has over 300,000 new members signing up a month, there is no other way of obtaining all these new members addresses than this {Theft, in clear and simple terms}.

It is very easy for marketers of all levels to get drawn in from the promises of quick cash and easy money. E-mail recipients are sensitive to what they receive, which is evident from our receipt of over 1,000+ flames sent due to the Miami ISP/Bubba incident.

The bottom line is that you must be very careful on the methodologies used for performing E-mail marketing. Personalized messaging to your installed-customer base and to "opt-in" E-mail lists make sense in avoiding the "flames" and negative PR that can come with irresponsible marketing activities in cyberspace.