Spam Fraud...
The recent announcement that Yahoo and AOL will start to charge bulk mail senders to bypass spam filters seems to be generating quite a controversy.
But it comes as no surprise to me that the only ones complaining are the free riders. I've read their arguments and they're all blatantly self serving.
The direct email marketers say they can't afford to send you their valuable 'Free Vacation' email because the economics don't add up.
Hello? That's the point!
The white list and reputation based 'bonded' emailer say that reputation is really the way to determine if a sender is legit or not. I'll agree that reputation might be a good way to determine legitimacy, but I'll never agree that reputation ought to mean someone should get something for nothing.
Matt Blumberg, CEO of bonded email provider ReturnPath, says in his corporate blog that:
To argue that reputation somehow trumps economics simply fails to acknowledge the fundamental problem of spam. The costs of spam are not incurred by the spammers. Imposing costs on volume senders is a modest effort to shift to them a greater share of the burden.
I'm all for businesses that can exploit economic inefficiencies (like free email), and legit direct email marketers have done just that. But you won't see any crocodile tears from me when something becomes more efficient (no free email). If your market gets more efficient (and they always do), change your business and adapt. Or die.
Any spam remediation system that doesn't address this is simply treating the symptoms, not the cause. Charging senders to send email makes the email economy more efficient. That can only be a good thing.
As far as I'm concerned, GoodMail is GreatMail.
I hope they are successful and that this evolves toward the recipient getting some of this revenue. Maybe Matt's idea of paid spam isn't so bad. If the price was right, I'd let spam into my inbox, no problem.
I'd love to see the day when we could start to worry about Spam Fraud.
But it comes as no surprise to me that the only ones complaining are the free riders. I've read their arguments and they're all blatantly self serving.
The direct email marketers say they can't afford to send you their valuable 'Free Vacation' email because the economics don't add up.
Hello? That's the point!
The white list and reputation based 'bonded' emailer say that reputation is really the way to determine if a sender is legit or not. I'll agree that reputation might be a good way to determine legitimacy, but I'll never agree that reputation ought to mean someone should get something for nothing.
Matt Blumberg, CEO of bonded email provider ReturnPath, says in his corporate blog that:
"Email stamps also do feel like they put the world on a slippery slope towards paid spam -- towards saying that money matters more than reputation."Not exactly sure what universe Matt lives in, because where I live, for these sorts of things, money does matter more than reputation. Will the bus take me downtown because I have a good reputation? Will a restaurant serve me a meal because I'm a good guy? Will the post office deliver my dad's mail to me without a stamp because I trust him?
To argue that reputation somehow trumps economics simply fails to acknowledge the fundamental problem of spam. The costs of spam are not incurred by the spammers. Imposing costs on volume senders is a modest effort to shift to them a greater share of the burden.
I'm all for businesses that can exploit economic inefficiencies (like free email), and legit direct email marketers have done just that. But you won't see any crocodile tears from me when something becomes more efficient (no free email). If your market gets more efficient (and they always do), change your business and adapt. Or die.
Any spam remediation system that doesn't address this is simply treating the symptoms, not the cause. Charging senders to send email makes the email economy more efficient. That can only be a good thing.
As far as I'm concerned, GoodMail is GreatMail.
I hope they are successful and that this evolves toward the recipient getting some of this revenue. Maybe Matt's idea of paid spam isn't so bad. If the price was right, I'd let spam into my inbox, no problem.
I'd love to see the day when we could start to worry about Spam Fraud.
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