FC: An ex-DMAer replies to Politech on why marketers love "opt-out"

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Previous Politech message:
"Harvey Silverglate on DMA's very narrow definition of spam"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04961.html

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Reply-To: <ben () theisaacsongroup com>
From: "Ben Isaacson" <ben () theisaacsongroup com>
To: <declan () well com>
Cc: "'Kevin Noonan \(E-mail\)'" <kevin () interactivemarketing org>
Subject: RE: Harvey Silverglate on DMA's very narrow definition of spam
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 09:59:01 -0700
Organization: The Isaacson Group

Declan,

I swear to you I'm no longer employed or on retainer by the DMA.  With
that said, here are my thoughts on this:

The DMA has clearly made a mistake in positioning itself behind 'the one
bite at the apple' approach. There is absolutely no way email users can
opt-out of every piece of legitimized spam in their inbox and expect to
continue to use the medium effectively.

However, the DMA position really isn't about email, it's about direct
marketing.  For more than eighty years, direct marketers have fought for
opt-out; whether it is with financial, health, or marketing data. This
is not a position easily changed, and more important--if it is changed,
it will domino into all of the other opt-out positions the DMA has taken
over its' history.  Certainly this may be the time to start considering
an overall opt-in approach to all data collection, but the majority of
the DMA's 4000 member companies are not ready for that.

Regards,

Ben Isaacson


The Isaacson Group
p) 917-494-7717     f) 208-248-4638
ben () theisaacsongroup com
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Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 13:05:38 -0700
Subject: Declan, I'm worried about the Harvey
From: Gerard Van der Leun <gvdl () cox net>
To: <declan () well com>
CC: <has () theworld com>
Message-ID: <BB39ACA1.4C16%gvdl () cox net>
In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20030715012118.044f8be0 () mail well com>

I love Silverglate in a manly way and find him second to no other in his 
rabid attack poodle defense of free speech. However, I must admit that his 
late missive also, in the sub-textual realms of deep deconstruction, gives 
us all way too much information about his possible leisure time activities.

It is often thus with those who argue against one thing but picking an over 
the top example for contrast. Spam is spam and torture with ye olde 'hot 
poker up your ass' to borrow Harvey's felicitous phrase, is quite another. 
I receive spam on a daily basis, as, no doubt, do you and all the others 
checking into Politechbot. I have yet to feel it on the same basis as a 
cauterization of the nether regions, but then I do not, as a rule, take 
pleasure  from such a process.

My attitude towards span is much more free-wheeling than, I imagine, most 
of your readers. Yes, it is irritating in the same manner as a mosquito in 
the next room. But that is why God decreed the delete key and the filter.

Yes, we should, by all means, work to eliminate this blight on the net, but 
couldn't we do something about the two pounds of daily junk mail I have to 
carry from my mailbox on the street to the recycling bin every day while 
we're at it? "Means of delivery," my ass. For Spam I have to set the 
filters and press a key. For junk mail I have to take a walk.

Yes, Spam is EVOL! But don't you think that if the Nigerian Letters and 
Penis Extension scams did not on a daily basis separate fools from their 
money that they otherwise might use the cash for something really awful 
such as extending their already besotted relationship with AOL to a year's 
contract.

And yes I know the "Dammit, I'm PAYING for my bandwidth and they are 
HOSING  and stealing it" argument, but to those to whom much bandwidth is 
given much is required. If it were possible to match the email and online 
discussions ABOUT spam with the SPAM sent it would be interesting. Oh, no 
doubt they would be much more SPAM than outrage about spam. Still, it would 
be interesting.

Couldn't we just get some Internet Libertarians with a SPAM hardon and the 
knowledge that they had contracted a deadly disease to just hunt down the 
spammers and shoot them dead at their keyboards? We needn't get them all. 
Just a few found leaking copious amounts of red fluid onto their 
hard-drives with a can of Spam stapled to their foreheads would give the 
others pause.

And lastly, we know that the whole spam blatherfest has gotten way out of 
hand when we can parse a found poem by Harvey out of the message below. 
Sort of Ginsbergian in tone and subject matter:

The Means of Delivery
by Harvey Silverglate

friendly torturer
hot poker up your ass,
the hot poker up your ass,
it's not torture,
where he's coming from
what he's about to do to you
your tormenter lets you know
who he is
and what he's doing to do.
I prefer the latter
(much as I prefer being slapped aroun
having a hot poker shoved up my ass),
in terms of what's a reasonable
manner for delivery.


======
Hey Declan,
   According to Wientzen's way of thinking: If you're being held as
a suspected terrorist, and your friendly torturer tells you that he's
going to shove a hot poker up your ass, and then he indeed does shove
the hot poker up your ass, it's not torture, since he was honest and
straightforward in announcing to you, in advance, who he is and where
he's coming from and what he's about to do to you?  My point is that I'm
not quite sure why it matters if your tormenter lets you know who he is
and what he's doing to do. If you get 200 email a day from people
seeking to entice you into a commercial (or fraudulent) transaction, it
hardly matters if they're properly labelled. The only difference between
proper labelling and "fraudulent" labelling is that the former has to be
opened to see what's there, while the latter can be deleted while still
unopened. While I prefer the latter (much as I prefer being slapped
around rather than having a hot poker shoved up my ass), I don't see how
proper labelling changes an unwanted email from being spam (although it
does stop it from being fradulent).
   As you know, I'm a free speech absolutist, and I do not buy into
the distinction between "core protected speech" and "commercial free
speech", but I do believe in the imposition of "reasonable time, place
and manner" restrictions, and it seems to me it's reasonable for
spammers to ask, first, if you're willing to be placed on their spamming
list. All people who do indeed respond favorably now and then to a
spammed advertisement would agree; others, like me, would not opt in. In
this regard, the email medium differs from receiving junk mail -- in
terms of what's a reasonable manner for delivery.
--
Gerard Van der Leun

http://americandigest.org

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Subject: RE: Declan, I'm worried about the Harvey
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 11:53:07 -0400
From: "Harvey Silverglate" <has () theworld com>
To: "Gerard Van der Leun" <gvdl () cox net>, <declan () well com>
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

I thought I was offering an analogy, not a memoir!
        Harvey

-----Original Message-----
From: Gerard Van der Leun [mailto:gvdl () cox net]
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 4:06 PM
To: declan () well com
Cc: Harvey Silverglate
Subject: Declan, I'm worried about the Harvey



I love Silverglate in a manly way and find him second to no other in his
rabid attack poodle defense of free speech. However, I must admit that
his late missive also, in the sub-textual realms of deep deconstruction,
gives us all way too much information about his possible leisure time
activities.

It is often thus with those who argue against one thing but picking an
over the top example for contrast. Spam is spam and torture with ye olde
'hot poker up your ass' to borrow Harvey's felicitous phrase, is quite
another. I receive spam on a daily basis, as, no doubt, do you and all
the others checking into Politechbot. I have yet to feel it on the same
basis as a cauterization of the nether regions, but then I do not, as a
rule, take pleasure  from such a process.





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