On Fri, 4 Dec 2009, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
What are you asking? Obviously 'unsolicited' is NOT 'wanted', so therefore
by using the word 'wanted' I am by definition meaning *solicited*. That
means somone ASKED for the mail. REQUESTED it via an
opt-in mechanism, with confirmation.
I will then have to REPEAT that this will NEVER fly.
If you mean the marketers will fight to get around it, well, of course,
that is their goal in life: Trying to look legitimate while skirting the
thin edge of spamming....
If you look at return path they are ....
whitelisting "permission-based" e-mail.
...(snipped good 'redbox' example)
Yes, this is the grand new frontier of e-mail marketing. Technically, you
*are* opting-in. It meets satisfactory criteria because you are using some
other form of identification to substantiate that you are *really* you
(you are buying stuff). But it puts the burden back on the customer to
remember to later 'opt out' after the genuine purpose for having that
e-mail has been completed. Very sneaky.
But now, because 'technically' you have people 'opting-in' you once again
face the problem that *some* people actually *want* the after-sale
advertising e-mails, and some don't and consider it spam. What default
score do you set in a situation like that? How much strength does a
whitelist get?
No, the recipients HAVE NOT explicitly requested an opt-in, they have
merely NOT explicitly requested to opt-out when they provided their
e-mail address for some other reason.
Now I don't *know* Habeas policy, but I would suspect that they would
require any company of this type to have a click-box that, if left
unchecked, results in no further mail than that necessary to complete the
transaction. If they don't then the value of the whitelist is degraded,
and so it should not be favored by mail filters like SA.
BUT WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS. The examples cited in recent posts have
been genuine unsolicited mails. Mail to honeypot addresses, etc. There is
an abuse issue, and it is not related to the otherwise worthwhile point
made above.
And yes, people *do* request notices of weekly specials at their computer
store, and ads for the next event at the colliseum. There is a lot of
legitimate e-mail advertising. None of it is (should be) 'unsolicited'.
Wrong.
People fall into a bell-curve on this issue.
Thank you for clarifying that yes, my point is that SOME people (not
'all') sign up for these e-mails. Doesn't make me 'wrong'. Just means you
read into my words an 'all' that I did not explicitly use.
That's why Habeas customers need a whitelist in the first place -
because they are adopting a point of view of what spam is that is
contrary to what most users hold.
This is self-defeating hyperbole. My first instinct is to argue with this
brash mis-statement of their intent and practices. So please avoid this
kind of hyped garbage and stick to the simple facts you presented in the
rest of your post which say it like it really is.
Habeas *says* they review each client carefully. So the question is
whether they are doing a good enough job. People who wish to entertain
accusations that they are deliberately doing a poor one for profit *may*
have a point, but I consider it unlikely, as Habeas has a strong
profit-driven motive to NOT be viewed as unreliable in the community.
If we stop with the crazy 'who is in whose pocket' kind of junk, and dig
into what is really happening, this company may take us seriously and
consider it in its own best interests to investigate the way spam (true
unsolicited, NEVER approved) *is* being accredited by their whitelists and
delivered to addresses that can be demonstrated to be 100% certain to have
never requested it.
- Charles
