A group including nineteen leading e-mail service providers is pushing for a kind of certification process to be adopted in cyberspace as a technological, not governmental, solution to spam - and to the choking off of e-mail people want to receive.
"E-mail that is wanted by the recipients but sent in volume to groups of subscribers and customers, has become an unintended victim in the war against spam," said Network Advertising Initiative executive director Trevor Hughes. "These e-mail service providers know that a stronger voice representing legitimate e-mail senders is needed as policies, technologies, and practices are created that will impact what consumers do and don’t get in their inboxes."
That was in January, when the NAI pulled the coalition together. Last week, they announced a blueprint for a certification process by which e-mail senders would have to meet a certain number of qualifications, with e-mail service providers registering their clients, the NAI said.
Described as working something along the line of caller ID, the system would let Internet service providers recognize an e-mail sender and stop their materials if they were not recognized as legitimate senders, the NAI said. "It would allow e-mail senders to ID themselves beyond a reasonable doubt," said Hans Peter Brondmo, coalition chairman and a Digital Impact senior vice president, told Direct, a direct marketing trade newsletter. "We’re going to make it so it’s impossible to deceive."
The coalition's blueprint committee told the newsletter there could be varying certification levels - for example, marketers sending messages to actual customers would have those messages to a bulk mail folder, while the marketers would have to prove the e-mail addresses they had were "double opted-in."
E-mailers and ISPs alike would be held accountable under the proposal, the NAI said, with e-mailers having to stay within certification requirements and ISPs having to account for why they block e-mail as spam, Direct said. "If you can shine a light on the legitimate senders, then anyone who comes in from the dark is going to create a lot of suspicion," Brondmo said.
The e-mail service providers in the coalition include Digital Impact, DoubleClick, Experian, iMakeNews, Aptimus, Avenue A, BlueHornet Networks, Britemoon, Cheetahmail, Clickaction, eDialog, Eversave, ExactTarget, GotMarketing, MindShare Design, Roving Software, Topica, Virtumundo, and Yesmail.
"Over the next year, state legislatures will consider laws that will impact e-mail," said Topica president and chief executive officer Anna Zornosa. "Congress will design and consider bills, and ISPs will implement new policies and filter technologies to limit spam. E-mail service providers need to be part of these considerations, to make sure the desires of their customers and their customers' subscribers are represented."
