I was reading an article on Virus Rants and the opening paragraph really stood out.
you wouldn’t think this needs to be said, but apparently it does – being a whitehat means taking sides. more than that, it means taking the side aligned (more or less) with the general public’s interests – doing things for their direct or indirect benefit.
In the ISP world most sentences that start with “I’m a legitimate email marketer” end with a description of why the legitimate email marketer should be allowed to send mail that recipients may not want. This type of statement tends to annoy (or worse) the ISP representatives that are listening to why they should be allowing mail from this legitimate sender through.
Being a legitimate email marketer means taking sides and taking the side aligned with the general public’s interest. It does not mean that you get a free pass against blocking and filtering at ISPs, it means that you adhere to a higher standard. It means doing the right things, rejecting the bad things and standing up against those who adopt poor practices.
HT: Box of Meat
RSS - Posts
Exactly. The less-than-legitimate marketers who continually poison the well by pissing off recipients don’t read Box of Meat or Word to the Wise, they don’t follow best practices, they don’t hear what ISPs are telling them — but they might listen to their fellow marketers.
Unfortunately, most of their fellow marketers continue to pay fealty to organizations which lobby against the best practices they themselves follow (DMA, ESPC, etc.) Most of their fellow marketers talk about delivery in terms of battle, rather than compatibility and respect. It’s far past time for the truly legit folks to take a stand, and encourage their peers to follow the same practices they do.
The ESPC lobbies against best practices JD? I’m not sure I agree in general, though I suppose there might be some exceptions. Can you be more specific?
[…] been noted several times in the last few days that legitimate email marketers need to take a stand and hold the banner high on doing the right things… and […]