Quote:
Originally posted by RawAlex@May 15 2003, 04:55 PM
Haha... come to Canada, I put a little sticker on my mailbox that says "no ad mail" and the post office won't deliver bulk anything to me. I can put the same thing on my door, and circular companies are obliged not to deliver to me.
Why can't I do that with email?
Alex
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I think there is a way here (at least in some localities) to tell them not to deliver bulk mail... We also have local classifications of mail that they deliver to "occupant"/"resident" which runs under the price of regular bulk rates and you can tell them not to deliver that too....
Most junkmail though, is not necessarilly delivered or identified as bulk mail... At least a good piece won't be. There are all sorts of rates between "bulk" and "First Class" including many many different versions of "Non Profit".... We do one called "Pre Canceled Stamps" that looks like first class, smells like first class, but gets delivered at quite a bit lower than first class... Basically, if you can automate the presort and print a barcode on it, then you can go at a much lower rate than first class and not have it be identified as bulk... Therefore, it would still get delivered.....
and the spoofing of return address, etc that goes on in email spam goes on in snailmail spam too.... Companies pay a lot of money to design mailings to look like they came from someone else but still stay on the right side of legal, just to get you to open the piece...
I don't know what the formula is in email.... but on mailings via snail, the general rule of thumb is hit them at least 3 times..... The first one you gotta figure goes in the trash... The second one goes on the desk for a couple of days and then in the trash... The third one might actually get opened....
A good direct mail company will track responses.... If you responded to the first drop, you either wont see the second, or you will get more of a personalized response as a second... If you respond to the second, etc....
And snailmail lists get sold just as easily as email lists, whether you ever actually agreed to be sold or not....
Anyway, the recent actions on email spam seem to concentrate on "misrepresentation" being the worst part.... But this has been common in ALL MaARKETING since the second ever product came along... I say the second product, because the first product was marketed with nothing else out there... Products commonly try to look like more successful items in the competitions line.... On the shelf at the liquor store, right alongside RonRico Rum, you will see RonRIO rum... Label looks the same, spelling at a glance looks the same... Idea is that you will reach for a RonRico and you will get a RonRio..... This is extremely common in the liquor/wine business..... I also notice lots of lookalikes at the grocery store and in my mail every day.....
So, why is "Misrepresentation" such a crime in the email marketing industry ? I tell you, imho, it is because the feds don't get a cut.. That simple... Products on the shelf they get taxes on, hell, to put that label on the RonRio bottle, the label had to be approved for each state it is in and also at the federal level... Each of these entities of course charged for the process of approving the label... They got their cut, what the hell do they care if RonRio trys to grab RonRicos market share, that is RonRicos problem, not the governments....
As it should be in a free enterprise system......