On Thursday and Friday you can be a part of two critical days for online marketing. Key leaders behind the new data privacy bills and online regulatory initiatives be keynoting, speaking and their staff and other appointed officials and executive branch members will be present. This is an opportunity to lobby directly and learn from industry leading experts which few professionals are being offered. OTA has been a powerful force in Washington DC for you- now is the time to join and be heard.

LashBack clients receive a special discount. Contact James O’Brien to learn more.  Register by August 31 and use code News400 and Save $400

Keynote, Plenary Speakers & Visionaries

• Hon. Gary Locke, US Secretary of Commerce
• Representative Cliff Sternes (FL) - US House of Representatives
• Howard Schmidt - White House Cyber Security Coordinator*
• Greg Link, President & Co-Founder, Global Speed of Trust
• Trevor Hughes, Executive Director, IAPP
• Randall Rothenberg, President, Interactive Advertising Bureau
• Vance Hitch, CIO US Department of Justice
• Ari Schwartz, Senior Adviser for Internet Policy, (NIST)
• Maneesha Mithal, Associate Director, Federal Trade Commission
• John Scarrow, General Manager, Microsoft
• Craig Spiezle, Founder & Executive Director, Online Trust Alliance
• David Daniels, CEO, The Relevancy Group
• Michael Barrett CISO, PayPal
• Josh Glantz, VP, General Manager, Publishers Clearing House
• Mark Bregman, CTO, Symantec
• James O’Brien, Compliance Visionary, LashBack
• and over 25 other industry, business and policy leaders

“Online trust and consumer confidence is critical to the long term vitality of ecommerce. It is incumbent on the public and private sectors to collaborate, advancing best practices and reducing vulnerabilities,” said Craig Spiezle, Executive Director of OTA. “The Commerce department’s commitment to privacy, security, resiliency, innovation and education are essential components to a robust and secure economic engine for our nation.”
Hosted at Georgetown University, September 22-24, the 5th Annual Online Trust and Cybersecurity Forum includes keynotes, plenary and workshops to provide business and technical decision makers prescriptive and actionable advice. The goal of the Forum is to help e-commerce companies, governmental agencies, financial institutions, and marketers enhance consumer protection while protecting their brands from emerging threats.

A highlight of the Forum is Greg Link of Franklin Covey who will provide a keynote on the New York Times best seller The Speed of Trust. Sponsored by OTA Board member Return Path, this keynote will provide insights for business leaders to understand the elements of trust and the impact to the effectiveness and online reputation.

“As Google, eBay, Facebook, Amazon, and so many others have proven, trust is the currency of the on-line economy. Our future economic growth depends on reliable mechanisms to verify trusted on-line organizations that behave in ways we can count on. Attendees to the OTA Forum will be provided the tools to better manage trust with their customers, partners and colleagues”, Greg Link, Partner, Franklin Covey.

“Consumer confidence in the brands they interact with online is the cornerstone of success in the information economy,” said Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path. “Return Path has consistently worked to innovate while maintaining core values in our business practices. We believe that The Speed of Trust has a central message about how vital trust is in relationships – in this case between businesses and users – for maintaining confidence in privacy, security and intellectual property.”  
In conjunction with the Forum, OTA will be hosting the OTA Training Academy on Wednesday Sept 22, offering two, half-day training programs on email authentication and email regulatory compliance. Taught by industry leaders, the Academy is a mix of curriculum based instruction, theory, practical applications and hands-on exercises. Participants will have the option to take a certification exam at the conclusion of the program with recognition at the Award’s program.
The Forum will be held on September 22 -24 at Georgetown University in Washington DC. Register by July 31st for early bird savings. In addition, participants may earn up to 10 CPE credits for attending key sessions. https://otalliance.org/dc.html
The event is being sponsored by OTA members including; Better Advertising, Box Sentry, Direct Marketing Association, DigiCert, Infragard, Intersections, Internet Identity, Lashback, MarkMonitor, Message Systems, Microsoft, Perkins Coie, PreferenceCentral, Return Path, Symantec and TRUSTe.

Register Today: https://otalliance.org/dc.html.

Tech-Law’s summary is pretty generous to Kleffman as a plaintiff, who by reading the Judge’s decision was shut down over seemingly every argument presented. A major provider of VOIP services was sued in California over claims that a “marketing agent” from Nevada sent email offers, clearly depicting the advertiser and mentioning the publisher in the from line as greatcallrates.com@ and greatcallrates@ and various other similar versions. This was also the url of the landing page for the offer and was relevant to the content of the message.

Kleffman’s main complaint was that the domain after the @ in the initiator’s From email address was “garbled” among other descriptive terms for example: @countryfolkgospel.com or @lowdirectsme.com. The claimed intent of doing this was to evade spam filters, because filters could not block vonage.com for example if it was not used in the offers in question. Which I can’t see any ISP doing this, because what about all of vonage’s customers and prospects using an ISP who are not “anti-spam litigants”? The Judge gave an undisputed “No” to the question is it illegal in California to send from multiple domain names to evade spam filters. Which I couldn’t see to be the intent of this practice anyway. It does seem like it would have saved a lot of trouble to use domains that were relevant and more transparent, because they were clearly traceable directly and through all of the information in the messages. Another bad “anti-spam” case <sigh>.

This bill could significantly affect the ability of marketers to acquire customer acquisition lists because it would require opt-in consent for sharing most data with third parties. However, the bill does not regulate the disclosure of aggregate information, does not distinguish between PII and non-PII data, does not allow private right of action, and does not affect the current CAN-SPAM legislation. Boucher’s office is accepting comments on the bill until June 4, 2010 and many industry associations including the DMA are already speaking out against it. View articles from MediaPost and AdvertisingAge. As an ESPC member, LashBack was provided with a clear, comprehensive summary of the Boucher Bill draft. I have included the key points below and  urge marketers to look into ESPC membership to gain access to future industry resources.

Data covered by the legislation includes:

• First name or initial and last name
• Postal address
• Telephone or fax number
• Email Address
• Unique biometric data
• SSN Tax ID or any government-issued ID number
• Financial account numbers
• Any unique persistent identifier such as a customer ID, anonymous profile, IP address or cookie ID that’s used to collect and store information about a specific individual
• Preference profiles

The bill also addresses privacy policy requirements. The following list, provided in a summary to members by the ESPC, contains only the items not typically included in privacy policies today:

• How an entity stores information covered in the bill
• The length of time covered information is stored in identifiable form
• How the entity disposes of or renders data anonymous after the expiration of the retention period
• The choice and means the entity offers individuals to limit or prohibit the collection and disclosure of covered information
• The means by and the extent to which the individual may obtain access to covered info that has been collected by the entity
• A hyperlink to or a listing of the FTC’s online consumer complaint form or the toll-free phone number for the FTC’s Consumer Response Center

In the draft, several things would require consumer opt-in, including privacy policy changes, disclosing information to third parties, collection of the sensitive info covered earlier including geo-location info, and the collection of most individual behavioral targeting data.  The bill also states that it would require opt-in for disclosing preference profiles, but it contains an exception.  Individually managed preference profiles could be shared with third parties without opt-in if the marketer offers an opt-out, deletes or makes data anonymous after 18 months, includes a seal on ads that leads to information on how the ad was delivered and offers a way for the consumer to manage their preferences or opt-out of having a profile created altogether.

One interesting Boucher Bill provision is that ad networks would be given express consent to share preference profile information with third parties. This provision parallels legislation requiring advertisers and ad networks to share suppression file information with third parties.  CAN-SPAM, which is centered around consumer opt-out, could explain the purpose behind sharing preference profiles with other marketers. If all third party marketers have access to a consumer’s preference profile, they are then able to adhere to it and avoid abusing consumer info with offers running through a network.  Many email marketers are well aware of the dangers of sharing opt-out data with third parties. One should question whether sharing preference profile information would leave it open for potential abuse or serve to protect consumers if it is encrypted or properly protected. Contact the ESPC for more information on this important legislation.

St. Louis, MO (PRWEB) May 14, 2010 — LashBack, LLC, the world’s first provider of email marketing compliance data, launches Trusted Ad Networks, to recognize marketers utilizing patent-approved email compliance technology to self regulate compliance, protect brand reputation and safeguard the consumer email experience. MarketLeverage, one of the largest online “cost-per-acquisition” networks, is among the first to be listed as a LashBack TRUSTED Ad Network for its early adoption of compliance technology to protect the sustainability of the email channel. Since 2005, MarketLeverage has implemented LashBack compliance tools to enforce CAN-SPAM guidelines and improve the quality of its publisher base, building a successful online ad network that continues to safely leverage email along with multiple marketing channels.

“The compliance program at Market Leverage is crucial to protecting consumers, improving traffic quality, and sustaining long-term success. Advertisers count on Market Leverage to protect brand reputation and maintain not only compliance with federal regulations, but also with their own internal expectations,” said Michael Jenkins, CEO of MarketLeverage. “By utilizing LashBack compliance technologies, we are able to monitor publishers in real-time, provide transparency in the email marketing channel, and see the data that allows us to actively enforce our policies.”

“Proactive compliance monitoring combined with secure suppression list management solutions, routine seeding procedures, and the use of MD5 encryption are essential to preserving brand reputation in email,” said Brandon Phillips, CEO of LashBack. “Many ad networks set email compliance expectations for their affiliates, but only LashBack TRUSTED Ad Networks have the actionable data and infrastructure to enforce compliance and provide true transparency, delivering consistent results to advertisers in a sustainable way.”

As advertisers continue to look for ways to extend brand distribution, acquire new customers and find sustainable sources of revenue, ad networks that utilize the email channel safely will continue to provide results. The full list of TRUSTED Ad Networks, as well as a comprehensive collection of email compliance resources, is available on the LashBack website.

LashBack, LLC is the first and only CAN-SPAM and global email marketing compliance service, processing approximately 10,000,000 commercial emails daily. LashBack provides actionable compliance information to a diversity of email marketing clients and unsubscribe reputation data and services to leading email reputation providers, ISPs and Receivers directly and through the LashBack Unsubscribe Black List (UBL).

MarketLeverage is one of the web’s largest “Cost Per Acquisition” (CPA) networks. Market Leverage enables web Advertisers and web Publishers to harness the power of performance marketing. Since its inception as PrecisionPlay Media in 2001, MarketLeverage has delivered millions of profitable sales and leads to Advertisers through its unique network of web Publishers.

Media Contact: James O’Brien, LashBack Director of Marketing, 314-754-1795.

###

As the author found out through Experian CheetahMail compliance that confirmation emails are, in fact, CAN-SPAM compliant. The reason they are compliant is that the CAN-SPAM act explicitly exempts these messages that are “notification of a change in the recipients standing or status with respect to a subscription”.

Even though the email was CAN-SPAM compliant, how well was it received? Because the email was sent immediately after the unsubscribe request, the writer did not think he was being taken advantage of.  The email was very clear and concise with an unambiguous purpose. The beginning of the email stated  “We really hate to see you go! You see we just learned that you no longer want to hear about our special offers through email. We will of course honor your request. The process to stop preprogrammed email offers may take one to two days”.  The message also included a clear subject line “We removed your email address…”.  Overall, this unsubscribe confirmation was well created.

The topic of sending unsubscribe emails is a controversial topic.  If a recipient unsubscribed on purpose, chances are they do not want to receive ANY emails from you again, even if it is an unsubscribe notification.  However, if you are going to send an unsubscribe confirmation email, there are a few guidelines to follow, provided by Anything Goes Marketing and B2B Email Marketing. First, make sure the email has is short and clear, with a direct message and a clear-cut subject line. This might even mean using a plain-text email that is light and has minimal graphics. You would not want the message to appear as another advertisement or newsletter email.  A good idea for the confirmation email is to include a brief survey, which will shine some light on why the recipient unsubscribed. Besides that, in case the user unsubscribed accidentally, a re-subscribe link should be contained within  the email. The email should also have contact information in case the recipient needs to contact the sender in the future.

That being said, it begs the question of deliverability. Getting delivered to a market that is just as likely to click as they are to not click, is a huge opportunity not just for email marketers, but any advertisers. Consumers who responded to the survey pointed out that malformed subject and from lines, grammar and spelling errors, and other deceptive factors all come in to play when choosing whether or not to identify a message as spam, or a valuable marketing effort.

An excellent read for anyone involved in the email marketing industry, consumers, and advertisers who may want to get started:

http://www.maawg.org/

http://www.maawg.org/system/files/2010_MAAWG-Consumer_Survey.pdf

http://www.returnpath.net/blog/2010/03/new-maawg-consumer-survey-half.php

Of that $350 million, $175 was attributed to social games like Farmville and the balance from growth in international markets. The exponential growth in the foreign markets is based in large part to “companies…. using the Facebook  advertising API to sell ads in bulk.” By using Facebook’s demographic targeting capabilities, companies are slowly realizing the promise from social media to have the ability to communicate in new ways with customers.

The projected estimate of 2009 income for Facebook is great news, as profits for the site appear to be doubling every year. In a recent article by BloggingStocks, the social networking site’s estimated value was placed at approximately $35 billion, with performance marketing income obviously a contributing factor.  With the potential for future revenue growth for Facebook, it looks as if their social data will pay off huge in the future.

The law originally prohibited collecting health-related information from minors without parental consent, and also the sale or transfer of that information that would identify said minor, no matter how the information was gathered. The narrower measure introduced earlier this year just prohibited the collection of data from minors to market prescription drugs to them. Schneider withdrew that measure after coming under fire for the possibility of making the state liable both legally and financially.

From the beginning the law had faced many challengers, most notably from NetChoice-a coalition of web companies, namely Yahoo and AOL. The challengers pointed out that the law violated not only the First Amendment but also restricted free commerce. Other possible problems would be the prohibiting of newspapers from publishing information about minors, possibly prohibiting teens from receiving information and also preventing teens from registering for social networking services.

The Center for Democracy and Technology, a digital rights group, also argued that the narrower measures could hinder web companies such as websites, email services and social networking sites because their platforms are supported by advertising and the collection of information from users.With the repeal of this controversial law it will be interesting to see what the next step is in the complicated business of online marketing laws.

Source: MediaPost, Wendy Davis:  http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=124131&nid=112157.