The Dark Side Of E-mail Marketing

While there are many companies who use email marketing in an ethical way to communicate with existing clients, there are those who send unsolicited bulk email, commonly known as spam.

While those who administer internet systems are responsible for dealing with abuse of the net, they are not responsible for dealing with abuse on the net, so while they will tackle spam quite vehemently, they prefer to have the legal system deal with issues such as libel or infringement to trademarks.

Illicit, or unlawful email marketing actually predates legitimate email marketing where is was not allowed to use the internet for commercial purposes, this has resulted in today’s uphill battle by those who are trying to establish themselves as a bona fide business in the email marketing industry.

It is difficult to distinguish between legitimate and spam email marketing because many spammers present themselves as legitimate operators and because of political groups pressurising legislatures to legalise certain activities which internet operators consider spamming.  For example, sending ‘opt out’ unsolicited emails.  Also, the sheer volume of spam has confused some users who cannot separate spam from legitimate emails.

One method proving effective and in favour of legitimate email marketing companies is to add a double opt in which requires that the recipient manually confirm their request for information by clicking on a unique link and then typing in a unique identifying code.