OptInk Supports Anti-Spam Movement, Provides Alternative To The Direct Marketing Association's Electronic Mail Preference Service By Launching PermissionMarketer Program.

Business Editors/High Tech Writers

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 11, 2000

OptInk unveiled today a new forum for consumers to censure inappropriate, yet inadvertent, e-mail marketing tactics by legitimate e-mail marketers.

The OptInk PermissionMarketer program is designed to encourage permission marketing techniques and provide an alternative to the Direct Marketing Association's Electronic Mail Preference Service (e-MPS).

"The privacy community is dead on. Even e-mail marketers who are marginal privacy advocates would not consider using the DMA's guidelines," said Jad Duwaik, Editor-in-Chief of OptInk.

"People are very emotional about spam and any marketer who follows the DMA guidelines should begin preparing for a likely torrent of flames, mailbombs and hacking attempts on their web server," adds Duwaik. "The DMA is advocating policies that were barely tolerated five years ago and are punished today. These policies are lame."

In response, OptInk has launched the PermissionMarketer program to codify the permission marketing guidelines that most legitimate e-mail marketers already follow. These guidelines include not sending any unsolicited commercial e-mail and explicitly soliciting an individual's permission to participate in a marketing activity (opt-in versus opt-out).

The PermissionMarketer program works by certifying e-mail marketers that abide by OptInk's permission marketing guidelines. The program is designed for those marketers who want to distance themselves from the stigma of spam and reinforce their commitment against spam to the consumer marketplace.

In addition, the OptInk Web site provides a forum for consumers to submit spam complaints. Marketers that attempt to respond and resolve the consumer complaint will be allowed to maintain the PermissionMarketer certification. Those that don't will be added to a list of spammers.

"The PermissionMarketer program is not designed to solve the spam problem but, like the DMA's e-MPS, offer legitimate marketers a guideline for how to use e-mail marketing," says Duwaik. "The government is the only entity that can stop spam by requiring, for example, that e-mail marketers use real e-mail addresses for responses."

"In the meantime," Duwaik adds, "the PermissionMarketer program offers some teeth by threatening to take away the program certification if legitimate e-mail marketers violate the permission marketing guidelines."

About OptInk

OptInk is a free, weekly e-mail newsletter that covers the opt-in e-mail marketing industry and provides news and information about how legitimate e-mail marketing companies can prevent spam. OptInk features case studies about permission-based e-mail marketing companies, and educates the industry about the best ways to engage customers without spamming them. OptInk focuses on customer acquisition via e-mail as it is currently used in three industry categories: incentive marketers such as Cybergold (Nasdaq NM:CGLD) and MyPoints (Nasdaq NM:MYPT); e-list brokers such as Yesmail (Nasdaq NM:YESM), 24/7 Mail (Nasdaq NM:TFSM), Opt-InEmail (recently acquired by Doubleclick (Nasdaq NM: DCLK)), and NetCreation's PostMasterDirect (Nasdaq NM:NTCR); and privacy agents such as PrivaSeek and Lumeria.

For more information, contact: OptInk, Jad Duwaik, [phone], http://www.OptInk.com.

SOURCE: DigitalWork ( http://www.digitalwork.com )

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