The new online marketing kid on the block is taking the high road on spam.
The Internet Direct Marketing Bureau has endorsed an opt-in policy that is designed to give users greater control over the flow of pitches and come-ons that pour into email boxes. The group will also educate direct-marketing groups about how to use the Net responsibly.
"There really hasn't been a [marketing] industry collective coming together to say, 'This is our policy,' and 'This is what we want to do,'" said Paul Grand, CEO of Word of Net and head of the bureau's steering committee.
Its spam policy allows consumers to check a box on a Web site to indicate interest in a product or service. Opt-out, the de facto standard among spammers, allows emailers to send out junk to anyone unless they are specifically told otherwise.
Antispam activists say opt-out offers little protection for consumers against the so-called hit-and-run spammers who work with their own lists of email addresses and blast spam through a trial dialup account until they are inevitably shut down.
The bureau announced its new policy at the group's inaugural meeting, held at the E-Biz Solutions conference in Arizona last weekend. It's asking email marketers to sign on to the opt-in policy, which will be posted at its site by month's end.
The group plans to hold quarterly meetings, with its next gathering planned for New York early next year. The meeting will focus on spam and privacy.
Antispam activists were pleased with the group's policy position.
"We've been trying to tell marketers that they're going to do a lot better with opt-in lists, and we're glad to see that an organization -- even a new one -- has come to realize this," said John Mozena, co-founder and vice president of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, which has about 13,000 members.
