Gary:
Hope these thoughts help:
I like the fact that you underline the word "conservatively". Spamming
really seems most evil to me when people buy or rent lists, even if they
know what the origin of those lists are, and even if they're supposedly
"targetted". If you are collecting the addresses in a more intimate way,
that's a very good start.
>From what I've seen, people seem to be more or less okay with
unsolicited commercial mail when:
1)They can tell up front why they are getting it.(The user understanding
how you got their address is key here.)
2)They understand how to discontinue getting it.
3)The mail is _highly_ targetted/personalized (getting back to the idea
of collecting addresses in an intimate way).
FYI, I'm still trying to figure this out, so I'd love to hear your
experiences.
My experience: we send out about 6 different newsletters, and from time
to time we send out an announcement on things going on around our site
(new products, special features, etc.)
It's a policy we're still working on: we send you a free
(advertising-supported) product that you requested, you allow us to
e-mail you from time to time informing you of something that you're
likely to be interested in, but which could be a waste of 10 seconds of
your time.
I know your situation is not the same as mine, but I wanted to give you
my perspective on unsolicited commercial e-mail (which is what these
occasional messages are, to some extent, although I wouldn't call them
spam).
Good luck (if you do it wrong, people will let you know!),
David Lundell
Producer, E-mail Products
CMPnet | http://www.cmpnet.com
Gary E. Bickford wrote:
>
> Keeping it short...
>
> I don't like spam, but also have need to promote things occasionally, on
> the net.
>
> So, I thought of a possible middle ground, which I'd like to bounce off the
> folks on this list.
>
> Is it ethical/tolerable to use a "referred mail" approach? By this I mean,
> send mail to people I know, or _conservatively_ have reason to believe are
> interested in, for instance, a particular shareware product, with a request
> to forward to others they think may be interested in the product? What if
> there is a moderate, real incentive to do so, such as a point system of
> rewards for referrals?
>
> To avoid others spamming with this, I would also include a statement of
> distribution rules, to the effect that the message may not be sent
> unsolicited to large groups, or posted on lists except by permission of the
> list owner, and then only when it is relevant and useful to the recipients
> of the list.
>
> I am aware that this approach, if taken to its extreme could become
> chainmail, which I abhor as well. But it seems to me that is not the case
> if it is done right.
>
> Without going into a lot of detail, I'd like some opinions, including
> general comments and suggestions for how to provide the proper wording for
> the proper distributiion rules.
>
> Flame On!! :)
>
> GEB
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