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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.
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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.
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