Why the DMA's "right thing" is the wrong thing to do

The guidelines of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) claim that it is all right to send out unsolicited bulk commercial email, aka "spam," provided one does the "right thing" when sending it out. This is a profoundly mistaken view; there is no "right way" to spam.

These guidelines claim, in part:

Marketers may send commercial solicitations online under the following circumstances:

1. The solicitations are sent to the marketers' own customers, or
   
2. Individuals have given their affirmative consent to the marketer to receive solicitations online, or
   
3. Individuals did not opt out after the marketer has given notice of the opportunity to opt out from solicitations online, or
   
4. The marketer has received assurance from the third party list provider that the individuals whose e-mail addresses appear on that list
   

a) have already provided affirmative consent to receive solicitations online, or
b) have already received notice of the opportunity to have their e-mail addresses removed and have not opted out.

(The above is a verbatim quote taken on April 11, 2003.)

Anyone who follows these guidelines will be recognized as a spammer, and will either find his account terminated by his ISP, or will find that a large part of the Internet will refuse to accept any mail from him.

Is "opt-out" spamming acceptable?

The DMA assumes that spamming people once is all right, as long as they are given an opportunity to request that further mail not be sent. This is a seriously mistaken view, for several reasons:

• Even one-time spam puts a heavy burden on people. Bulk email is easy to send out in huge quantities, and puts almost no incremental financial burden on the sender. Phone calls are limited by the need to use telephone lines and operators for the duration of the call, and US mail is limited by the cost of materials and postage. Email does not face such limits, and as a result is highly tempting to those who would like to start an advertising campaign cheaply. But it bears a different kind of cost: the overwhelmingly negative impression which it conveys to its recipients. For any but the most fly-by-night businesses, the loss of reputation from even a single spam outweighs any sales that may result. The Direct Marketing Association claims about 4700 members. Do you want to have to opt out of 4700 mailing lists from DMA members alone?
• Most people are highly reluctant to respond to opt-out requests. Precisely because spam is most attractive to the fly-by-nights, most "opt-out" options in spam are phony. Either they are fake addresses, or requests to opt out are ignored, or -- worst of all -- the recipient uses the opt-out request as confirmation that the address belongs to a live recipient, and will use it for subsequent mailings or sell it to other spammers.
• Third-party lists are untrustworthy. Think about it: People will often subscribe to useful mailing lists, but why would anyone delegate the right to be added to mailing lists, and why would anyone believe your claim to have been delegated that right? Spammers routinely claim to have obtained third-party permission to send mail. Even if the recipient has given permission to a mailing list reseller to convey authorization, and the list reseller has given you that authorization, there is no way for the recipient to know that your claim of authorization is valid. Nor is there any way for you to know that the list reseller isn't feeding you a pack of lies. Even if your intent isn't to spam, use of third-party "opt-in" lists makes you indistinguishable from a spammer.

DMA inconsistency

The DMA has not been consistent in its position on spam; in fact, its views often fluctuate within a single paragraph. In its 2002 annual report (PDF document), the DMA states:

E-mail marketing has a dark side - and it's called spam. DMA members use e-mail responsibly and ethically to announce special promotions, unveil new products, and publish e-newsletters.

Those are two actual, consecutive sentences in the same report. How can spam be the "dark side" of email, when the DMA advocates it as acting "responsibly and ethically"? There is no answer.

The same report states:

In September, we kicked off an outreach effort to educate consumers about what spam is, how they can recognize it, and what they can do to avoid it.

Why does a business organization yet feel the need to "educate" people about how to avoid being the target of "responsible and ethical" actions by its own members?

People don't have much trouble recognizing spam. Spammers routinely fill their messages with fake personalized headers and with lies such as "You have subscribed to this list" or "it is a federal crime to consider this message spam," and in a large enough group of people someone will believe anything, but the overwhelming majority of recipients have no trouble recognizing unsolicited mass mailings as such. If they're fooled by the first one, they'll figure it out by the hundredth one.

There is some disagreement about what constitutes spam. Some use the term to mean unsolicited commercial email (UCE), others for unsolicited bulk email (UBE) regardless of whether it's commercial in nature or not. But if you send a message to ten thousand addresses, advertising something for sale, without their owners' prior consent, that is unequivocally spam.

Marketing budgets are always tight, and a way to save money is always tempting. But would you try to save money by buying office furniture at Toys'R'Us or tapping into the power lines in front of the meter? Spamming is no less stupid as a money-saving tactic.

Doing the right thing -- really

There is a genuinely ethical and acceptable way to do marketing by email, but it's a world removed from the DMA's notion. This approach is confirmed opt-in -- sometimes confusingly called "double opt-in." You can announce the existence of a mailing list on a Web page or through other sources, and invite people to subscribe. Since submitting forged list subscriptions is a popular tactic of petty harassment, you must confirm each subscription request by sending an email message to the subscriber and awaiting a reply confirming that the request is authentic. A number of mailing list applications do this automatically.

You can also advertise in other people's opt-in newsletters. When you do this, you're seen as a benefactor, since you're helping to pay for information which people want to receive, rather than as an intruder. Do a bit of research on where you advertise, though; there are "newsletters" which claim to be opt-in but either are negligent about confirming addresses or are nothing more than spam runs. Advertising in one of those can only hurt you. But advertising in a legitimate newsletter will get people interested in your product or service, and not in retaliating against you.

Spamming is the "wrong thing" to do -- always. Ask anyone who's tried.

• "The Direct Marketing Association" by Bruce Miller
• DMA to Internet: SHUT UP AND EAT YOUR SPAM
• "Direct Marketing Association's Spam Buzz Update" by Brian Grulke

Copyright 2003 by Gary McGath

Last updated April 19, 2003