How to Stop Guerrillas at the E-Gate

It's so nice that firms like Yahoo and AOL and the like are always thinking about consumers and how they could help them. Yahoo even has Seth Godin, Mr. Permission based (and I mean it) as one of their vice-presidents. AOL wanted to protect all of their subscribers by proposing legislation that required a "…prior existing relationship" to exist before an email could be sent to them.

That proposal would have closed down the future for every list owner, list manager or list brokerage that thought the collecting and 'goodwill' of their email efforts, even absolutely correctly obtained "Opt-In" versions were theirs to market. Only AOL or an AOL clone would have had a 'prior existing relationship (since AOL has the lion's share of the market, they would have called all the shots or tariffs).

Now, Yahoo has announced 'Spamguard', of course spam is defined by Yahoo not the individual. Reportedly this system, to 'protect the consumer' detects large (define that term) quantities of unsolicited mail to a 'bulk mail folder'. How does Yahoo (or Big Brother) know if the message is unsolicited. Unless unsolicited means that Yahoo didn't do it I can't figure out how they have the right to do this.

Of course in this truly unregulated environment the biggest guerillas have their way on everything they wish.

The truth is that as long as there is a profit motive and profit for the big guerilla (you choose) then email is fine. If anyone else benefits, such as a legitimate list owner, list broker, list manager or just the consumer who may actually enjoy receiving communication (freedom of information) in an open society then there may be a problem. The 'problem' is cloaked in some nice wrapping and is taken care of by one of the Internet Oligarchy that looks out for all the rest of us. Yahoo's 'Spamguard' is yet another example of this sort of gimmick.

The direct marketing community has to wake up to the methods that are being used. We can no longer sight surveys and statistics that show strong majorities supporting our efforts. That may come as a shock, but 73% of consumers agreeing that they enjoy receiving email is not the answer. It's the 27% that don't want to receive anything, not even from Yahoo (who does send their own internal advertisements to their subscribers).

In this country the government, our constitution and traditions protect the right of privacy even if you are the minority opinion - and that's why all the 73% surveys are useless and allow the big guerillas to play their games.

It's actually time for the government to step in, I realize that as 'knee jerk' business people we're supposed to be against all types of government intervention, but if we think about what's in our own self interest we may learn to change our opinion.

Let the government charge a mill-cent for an e-mail transmission. It should be the Post Office, it's their traditional role and they need the revenue. It will also help all direct marketers as time goes on.

One of the key arguments from people has been that the P.O. couldn't track the revenue stream - not so. The advent of electronic stamps, plus the 'log files' from servers trailed to the various 'POPS' (point of presence) on the internet or those wonderful 'consumer minded organizations like AOL ' would allow for a continual and legitimate stream of revenue.

The Post Office would play the key role in what 'acceptable use practices' are on the net. If we don't allow the government access as I suggest it will fall into the hands of a small powerful group of ISP's. Then the privacy of consumers and the legitimate business rights of direct marketers will all be at risk.