INFORMATION DISCLOSURE STANDARD FOR EMAIL MARKETING
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (May 20, 2004) – EmailLabs, a leading provider of email marketing automation solutions, today introduced an administrative utility designed to ease compliance with the federal CAN-SPAM law, and called on email marketing providers to adopt a similar "Information Disclosure Standard."
The company’s new administrative utility takes the form of a predictable area of information and links in every email message where the recipient knows he or she can find certain components of CAN-SPAM-compliant emails. For example, the mandated postal mailing address and opt-out areas would be combined with such "best practices" elements as format preference, change email address feature, privacy policy link and more.
"An information disclosure standard is the logical next step for the industry," said Loren McDonald, Vice President of Marketing, EmailLabs. "CAN-SPAM hasn’t solved the persistent problem of spam, and probably never will. But it has done something else that may be even more important for legitimate email marketing – it has raised the industry’s consciousness. And that’s not just a feel-good acknowledgment. CAN-SPAM points the way toward a permission best practices framework – compelling email marketers to re-examine privacy policies, permission procedures and all the various elements that, together, comprise best practices."
Establishing and adhering to industry-wide standards, such as an Information Disclosure Standard, is aimed at providing recipients with reliable information about email marketers, thereby building trust in brands through consistent, understandable opt-in email marketing practices. EmailLabs is creating what the company hopes will become a new industry best-practice – raising the bar beyond simple CAN-SPAM "compliance" to encourage legitimate email marketers to voluntarily embrace a higher standard of transparency for email marketing.
"Whether or not the overall industry standard looks exactly like our utility isn’t important," said McDonald. "What’s vital is that the industry now begin the process of shaping a standard. Customers and subscribers are taking greater control over their information relationships – and expect email marketers to live up to their end of those relationships. As the standard is collectively defined, refined and adopted, those companies that ignore this trend risk experiencing a decline in subscribers and customers, trust in their brand, their reputation and their revenue."
Recipient-focused Data Points
EmailLabs’ new administrative utility is the company’s answer to this need for an effective standard. It represents a collection of important, recipient-focused data points – some mandatory, some discretionary, but all contributing to the umbrella concept of best practices. EmailLabs clients can choose which elements to include in each email marketing campaign.
The EmailLabs utility incorporates those elements required by the CAN-SPAM law: unsubscribe language, either a reply-to address or clickable link that takes the subscriber to a Web page with an unsubscribe form, and the sender’s postal mailing address.
EmailLabs also is giving its clients the option to include any or all of several additional recommended features that fall into the category of "best practices." This includes links to the recipient’s profile page on the sender’s Web site, disclosure of the address the email was sent to and potentially when or how the email address was obtained, functions for enabling recipients to change their email addresses and change format preference, a link to the company’s privacy policy, an explanation of why the recipient is receiving the email, information on the frequency and delivery dates of regular emails, the option to send the email to friends, a "subscribe" link for those friends, and more.
Other options specific to certain message types include copyright information, a link to the User Agreement, newsletter specifics like ISSN number and reprint information, and retailer information on exchanges, returns and shipping.
What each message includes depends on the information collected on recipients, permission practices and the type of email messages being sent, McDonald noted.
About EmailLabs
EmailLabs is a leading provider of advanced email technology solutions to agencies, publishers and marketing, sales and customer service departments of middle-market and Global 2000 companies. The EmailLabs email-marketing platform is provided as an ASP (Web-based) service, and is easily customized and integrated with a company`s Web site, sales force automation and CRM technologies. The company provides email marketing solutions to more than 300 companies, including Nokia, Agilent, Aon and Jupitermedia. Headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., EmailLabs is a service of Uptilt, Inc. Uptilt was founded in 1999 and is privately held. For more information, visit www.EmailLabs.com.
Contacts:
Loren McDonald
EmailLabs
650.569.3939
925.202.5976 cell
loren@emaillabs.com
Ken Greenberg
Edge Communications, Inc.
818-719-9292
ken@edgepress.com
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