FC: TRUSTe on spam and industry adopting best practices

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 22:23:27 -0800
Subject: Spammer in Chief
From: Fran Maier <fmaier () truste org>
To: declan () well com

Declan,

Enjoyed your article about the email practices of Senator Lieberman in 
"Hail to the Spammer in Chief."

In addition to pointing out the insufficiency of a purely legislative 
solution, it also points out some of the other issues facing the 
industry.  What was particularly difficult for me to understand is the 
assertion that if email has an unsubscribe, then its not spam.  Please!

This example underscores the need for industry to adopt email best 
practices.  These will include widely-accepted definitions of legitimate 
email, and will provide consumers with  an easy way to unsubscribe and easy 
access to choices regarding the use of their personal 
information;  and  third party oversight.  Independent oversight is 
critical to increasing corporate compliance and consumer trust, providing 
businesses with an additional set of eyes focused solely on their privacy 
practices and helping consumers when they believe their personal 
information is misused.

TRUSTe encourages companies to look into approaches such our Trusted Sender 
program, which bring together technology, best practices and third party 
oversight.  While no solution is perfect, it is time for all interested
parties (from ISPs to direct mailers) to engage themselves in solving the 
spam problem.

Regards,
Fran Maier
Executive Director, TRUSTe




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