Email is a wonderful medium for communication - it is fast, cheap, and convenient. No wonder then that more and more people are turning to email as a means of getting their message out to the world. The world, however, is not always appreciative. Here's some common myths about email, and tips on how to do email right.
- Email is free...
- It's just one email...
- But I'm not selling anything...
- Email addresses are public property...
- So I can't email my own Mother?!
- It's not illegal to send email...
- So how do I get my message out?
- Opt-in versus Opt-out
- Respecting Privacy
- But that's just your opionion...
A common myth is that email is just like regular mail, only vastly cheaper (even free) to send in quantity. There is one fundamental difference though - the majority of recipients actually pay to maintain an address and receive email. Even the free web-based email services aren't actually free outside North America, where users pay per-minute telephone charges. The assumption behind every email transaction is consent - I agree to bear the cost of receiving your email if you receive mine. This is why email is so attractive to advertizers and businesses - and scam artists. It costs considerably less to send out bulk quantities of email than any other form of advertizing, and the majority of the cost is incurred by the recipient. This is called cost shifting.<To Contents>
Sending email seems pretty innocent. We do it all the time, often to perfect strangers, and often without thinking. One email telling people about our great website, product or service doesn't seem like such a big deal. Unfortunately, as the number of people sending "just one email" continues to increase, the volume of email mounts. It's been estimated that if every business in the US alone sent just one email a year to every email address, we'd all be inundated with over 1,000 emails a day. That much email would rapidly fill up your mailbox so that the email you actually wanted wouldn't get delivered, and the whole system would break down (those of you in companies hit by the 'Melissa' virus will know exactly what I mean.) The problem is one of scale.
We all dislike the spam that comes into our mailboxes - pornography ads, "make money fast" schemes (I've yet to see one that was actually legal), and instant E-commerce kits from "reputable" companies (if they're reputable, why do they forge other people's addresses in the email headers?) But if I'm not trying to sell anything, it's not spam, right? Well, that all depends on how you define 'spam'. Labelling email as spam based on content (e.g. commercial advertising, pornography) seems straightforward enough, but actually misses the mark. Although ISPs use bulk commercial email as an example of spam in their terms-of-service, most do not restrict the definition based on the content of the email. In fact, the increasingly-used standard of good 'netiquette' is the issue of consent. This is because of the cost-shifting and scaling issues described above. (Not to mention that one person's "good cause" is another person's "harassment" - I said it could get messy!)
Another myth is that email addresses are just like public mailboxes. You have one, so it's very existence solicits email sent to it. This is also a flawed analogy. For example, every internet domain that sends or receives email is required by internet standards (RFCs) to have a working 'postmaster' address to deal with mail delivery problems. Some people likewise have their work email address published on a company website as a point of contact. Obviously, the expectation is that this contact has to do with highly specific issues. This is where the scaling problem outlined above hits home - too much unrelated email and relevant email risks being lost or undelivered. It is often possible to 'return to sender' unsolicited mail without cost - this is not true with email since costs are incurred at both delivery and return. The more unsolicited email arrives, the more it costs the recipient and the longer it takes to deal with it (consent and cost-shifting again). A related difference is that it is also possible in some countries to request that the post office not deliver flyers etc. to your mailbox - another thing which is not so easy with email.
No, that's not what I said. Your mother is more than willing to receive email from you. Come to think of it, when was the last time you wrote to her?! Remember, the issue is about consent. If someone has requested feedback on their website, they obviously consent to you emailing them about problems accessing pages or links. Likewise, if someone posts a question to a discussion group requesting an email response, they clearly consent to your sending an answer. It's mostly a matter of common sense. Do you object to total strangers phoning you at home to sell you something, ask your opinion, or inform you about the benefits of frog-worship? Why? Usually, because it's an invasion of your privacy, it's not the reason you pay the monthly standing charge for phone service, and the phone company wants you to pay to have your number delisted from the public directory. Actually, the phone is a much better analogy for email...
You may be surprised to learn that there are a number of laws either pending or already enacted concerning email - especially considering the international scope of the internet. (Side note: that "Murkowski" disclaimer citing S.1618? It never became law and doesn't apply outside the US anyway. Ignore it.) Outside the US (particularly Europe) there are also privacy and data protection laws that apply to anyone maintaining and using a list of names and email addresses. You can read more about these laws at the Spam Laws site. Most ISPs put restrictions on the type and quantity of email you can send from your account anyway. These are usually set out in their terms of service or acceptable use policy, which constitute part of a legally-binding contract with their customers. Please be sure to read the fine-print!
If everything I've said so far seems like doom and gloom, let me encourage you by saying that promoting your website, newsletter or service is actually quite easy. There are some pitfalls to avoid, but it really isn't hard to do things right. The key thing to remember is that word consent that I keep throwing at you. Here are some practical do's:
- Publish your website's address:
- Add the http://come.to.my.site/ to your letterhead, flyers, and business cards. Resist the urge to send an email to the world telling them all about it - just include the information the same way you would your street address or telephone number (see next item.)
- Use a signature file:
- The signature (or .sig) is the text automatically appended to emails or newsgroups posts by your email/browser software. There is actually a standard for these (dating back to the origins of the internet). Here's one that conforms to the standard:
--
David Stone
Toronto, Canada
Husband, father, bass-player, chemist
http://www.chem.utoronto.ca/~dstone/ <- my personal website
- On-topic postings:
- If you are subscribed to a discussion list or news group, it is normally acceptable to mention your website, newsletter or service where relevant in repsonse to specific posts or questions. For example, if someone asks "Does anyone have the music for...." you can reply "It's on my website at..."
Some lists/groups also allow periodic postings. If you subscribe to alt.mesopotamia, for example, you could periodically (say monthly or bimonthly) post something like:
If you're interested in Mesopotamian nose flutes, I have a wealth of information, products and services on my site at http://noseflutes.example.com/
I also have a monthly newsletter - see http://noseflutes.example.com/list.html
Just don't post the same message to alt.I.hate.noseflutes (off-topic) or a moderated group which says "absolutely no advertizing" in its welcome message. (If in doubt, ask first.)
- Link Submissions:
- Some websites allow you to submit the address of your website to their "Links" page. When doing this, be sure to read carefully any submission guidelines and, if they accept the link, make sure you notify them should the address change. Be wary though: avoid anyone claiming to be able to get your website in the 'top ten' search engine positions - especially if this arrived in an unsolicited email!
- Personal Email:
- It may seem like I'm contradicting myself, but I'm not - personal emails can be good. However, I do mean personal and not personalized. For example, a form letter in which the name is simply inserted from a database (or worse, from the To: address) is personalized (in marketing-speak) but quite clearly not personal. On the other hand, a short note begining:
"David, I saw your post on May 15th in alt.mesopotamia about nose flutes. I run a website linking different nose flute manufacturers and musicians together. Would you be interested in receiving more information about this? Rhino."
Note that there is no URL, no long-winded explanation, and a clear indication of where and when the sender found the address. Also note that the decision to follow up is entirely with the recipient. (If the recipient doesn't respond, the sender should not follow up - a non-response is a negative response.)
- Word-of-mouth:
- If what you provide is worthwhile, others will naturally tend to put links on their own websites and tell others about it. This is the best type of promotion because it will involve people who are genuinely interested in what you are offering. You can facilitate this by providing readily-accessible links, including graphics if appropriate. If you are running a newsletter or periodic mailing, make sure you have a website describing what it's about and how people can sign up for it.
You've probably had this happen to you to: you receive an email saying either that:
- you have subscribed to this newsletter (you didn't)
- you have been carefully selected to receive a special offer (you and 60,000,000 others)
- the sender just thought you'd like their weekly bulletins
- you emailed us about something unrelated, so we've added you to all our mailing lists
and somewhere it says "to unsubscribe....". This is called an opt-out mailing. Opt-out mailings are seductive to businesses, organizations and individuals because they are easy to create and have the appearance of giving the intended recipients choice in whether or not they continue to receive the mailings. I say appearance because opt-out schemes generally suffer from three fundamental flaws:
- They overlook the issue of consent in the initial mailing
- The completely overlook the scaling issue - the more lists doing this, the more lists I have to unsubscribe from...
- They are easily abused - there are often no checks in place to ensure that the person submitting an email address has the right to use that address (resulting in the abusive practice known as list-bombing)
- They have been polluted by professional spammers, who frequently use the "unsubscribe" option as a means of confirming valid email addreses. Thus attempts to unsubscribe frequently result in even more unwanted junk mail, some of it quite objectionable.
The current best-practice recognized by the internet commuity at large is confirmed opt-in. This is a system in which, when an address is submitted to a mailing list by any means (web form, email request, registration form, regular mail) the mailing list sends a request for confirmation to that email address, requiring a positive response from that address before any subscription takes effect. This respects the issues of consent and scaling, verfies ownership, and protects both individuals and list owners from such problems as forged subscriptions, mistyped addresses, and potential privacy violations. If you run (or are intending to run) any kind of email list, you owe it to yourself to adopt a confirmed opt-in procedure. You can get more information on list management principles here.
One final caution: there are a number of companies advertising "confirmed opt-in lists". Unfortunately, some of those have been anything but "confirmed opt-in", and a number of companies have suffered substantial harm to their reputations by buying and using such lists. If you are considering buying such a list, insist on seeing the original confirmations which show that the subscribers were aware the list would be sold to third parties. If this information is not forthcoming, or cannot be validated, take your custom elseswhere. It takes years for a busines or organization to build a reputation, but literally only seconds to lose it on the internet.
In the last section I raised the issue of privacy, something that more and more people are becoming concerned about, especially given the ease with which personal information can be gathered and processed on the internet. This is particularly important if you live or do business in a country that has data protection laws such as the UK. It is important to have and maintain a privacy policy regarding email addresses and other internet data. If you are running any kind of list, registration, support or information system via email, it should be clear to anyone using that service what will and will not be done with their email address. Specifically, you should state up-front whether or not signing up for one service will result in automatically receiving email for other services, or even the transfer of the email address list to other businesses or organizations (I would recommend doing neither of these things.)
Well no, actually - there are a lot of other people who share the same ideas (or beliefs or opinions) For example, the Internet Society publishes documents specifying best current practices, standards or protocols, called RFCs. One of these (RFC2635) deals specifically with the harmful effects of "mass unsolicited electronic mail messages" (aka spam) and is about as official as anything gets on the internet. Here are some other links for your consideration:
- Abuse Net - promote responsible net commerce
- Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS)
- CAUCE (Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email)
- EuroCAUCE
- CAUBE.AU (Australia)
- CAUCE India
- FREE (Forum for Responsible and Ethical Email)