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Tom's take on the "Responsible E-mail Communications Alliance" 28 September 2000 with an addendum on 5 October 2000 Today, I received a journalist query: Is this week's proposal from the Responsible Electronic Communications Alliance stringent enough to ease Internet users' concerns about spam and online privacy? Here's my take. RECA's proposal, while an admirable step, errs in attempting to redefine terms such as "confirmed opt-in" in new and unusual ways. As a result, it falls short of being what most consumers would consider fair, or what businesses find effective. Let's look at that term in particular. "Confirmed opt-in" became a common phrase a couple of years ago, when it became apparent that lots of people were being put on mailing lists without their knowledge or consent. Sometimes a dishonest marketer forges the subscription request; sometimes it's a third party, seeking to irritate the subscribed person; just as often, people are mis-subscribed when someone else mistypes their own e-mail address. But probably the biggest source of forged subscriptions comes from people who are forced to enter an e-mail address, and use a made-up one. (If you own a domain like dummies.com or nobody.com, you can expect to be forge-subscribed thousands of times per year.) To prevent false subscriptions, clever mailing list managers started sending confirmations to the addresses that were submitted for subscription. In other words, let's say someone enters me, "tom@tgeller.com", as their subscription address. Without confirmation, I would be on that mailing list until I complained. With confirmed opt-in, I get one message in the tom@tgeller.com mailbox: "Did you ask to be on this mailing list? Click on this link" (or whatever) "to say yes. Otherwise, you'll get no more mail from us." Because of confirmed opt-in, I'd only get one annoying message instead of hundreds. But that's not the way RECA defines it. Here's what they say about "confirmed opt-in": "Confirmed Opt-in" means an approach in which after a subscription has been received and entered, a confirmation E-mail reply containing (i) the source of the subscription request, (ii) instructions for how to unsubscribe from the List, and (iii) instructions for how to report that the subscription request was in error is sent to the user. In other words, you're going to keep getting mail you don't want and didn't ask for until you complain. That's 100 percent opt-out spam. That RECA defines "responsible" in this way is little surprise, when you look at its list of members. Note: There are *no* people on it representing those who receive, carry, store, or ultimately pay for e-mail. No Internet service providers. No community organizations. No plain ol' consumers. Just those who make their money by sending e-mail, and lots of it. You'll note that RECA's member list doesn't even contain any client companies such as Ford or Coca-Cola. That's because intelligent companies realize the folly of foisting e-mail on those who don't want it. Unlike the service bureaus represented by RECA, Fortune 500 companies measure success by the number of products sold, not the number of e-mails sent. Because RECA's principles encourage mailing practices overwhelmingly disliked by consumers, they hurt the companies they pretend to serve as well. Tom Geller President, Geller Communications, Inc. Addendum A private correspondent pointed out that Paul Vixie, founder of the antispam group MAPS, defined the term "Confirmed opt-in" in the same manner as RECA in an article on dmnews.com (fee required to read). I stand corrected. Vixie uses the term "Verified opt-in" to describe systems in which the recipient must actively confirm their subscription in order to continue to receive mailings. (I still prefer the more common term, "Confirmed opt-in" for such a practice.) My anonymous correspondent also disagreed with the reasons Fortune 500 companies and ISPs aren't taking part in RECA. Discussions continue, and I hope that representatives from those groups will soon take part. This page was last updated on Monday, February 09, 2004 at 2:22pm CST. All contents copyright 2005 by Tom Geller.