A study in the U.K. sponsored by Strongmail listed email marketing as a greater threat to consumer privacy than the Internet, direct mail or telemarketing. The Ponemon Institute surveyed both marketers and privacy and compliance professionals from the same organizations on email marketing and privacy practices and received jarringly disparate answers from the two groups.

In a nutshell, marketers held much more lax views on which consumer information could acceptably be shared with third parties. For instance, 29% of marketers were willing to share customer social security numbers and credit card numbers with third parties, while only 7% of data privacy professionals admitted to sharing social security numbers for marketing purposes. Not surprisingly, the study also revealed that security breaches of consumer data were much more likely to occur in companies that outsourced their marketing to third parties.

While data privacy people work to influence their companies to protect the integrity of sensitive consumer information, marketers often stymie these efforts because they are afraid complying with privacy policies will stand in the way of attracting new customers. Since marketers are closer to the action, they are ultimately going ahead with their own ideas of what is acceptable. According to the study, 71% of the privacy professionals said they believe their organizations are “respectful of consumers’ privacy rights,” but only 40% of marketers felt the same.

The bottom line is marketers should be more astute in regards to data privacy not only to protect consumers, but also to protect the integrity of their invaluable lists. According to the study, over 60 per cent of data protection and marketing professionals have experienced a data breach of consumer information in the past two years. One can see how easy it is for third parties to turn around and use marketers’ lists for their own financial gain. It’s crucial that marketers implement the same standards as their data privacy counterparts to encourage an environment of transparency and trust among consumers, as well as keep a close eye on exactly how their lists are being used.

Lashback offers ListMonitor and customized suppression list seeding as a way for marketers to find out how their list is being used, or possibly abused, by partners and third parties. Also, to learn more about practicing proper list hygiene click here.

The following articles offer more information about the 2008 Strongmail Study on Email Marketing Practices & Privacy:

Network World: Marketers mucking up data-privacy efforts by Ellen Messmer

Precision Marketing: Email marketing poses biggest threat to consumer data by Sara Kimberley

Thursday, Yahoo began offering free email accounts under two new domain names. The new domains, @ymail and @rocketmail, were made available to users because most of the desired handles at the Yahoo domain, which has been around since 1997, are already taken. Yahoo is currently the email market leader, with 266 million users in April, followed by Microsoft at 264 million, according to research firm, comScore Inc.

Yahoo is likely adding the new domains to compete with Google’s fast-growing Gmail, which has added 30 million users in the past year. Because of the popularity of Yahoo email, new users were forced to pick long or complicated handles that were difficult to remember. Yahoo hopes to expand its email universe by offering more options to new users and users unhappy with their current addresses. The new accounts will have the same features as current Yahoo accounts, including unlimited free storage. Yahoo expanded their storage limits from 3 megabytes to unlimited in response to Gmail, which upped the ante by offering 1 gigabyte of storage. Although email service is free, it is obviously important in fostering user loyalty and creating lucrative advertising opportunities.

For more info Read the AP article by Michael Liedtke here.

Thursday, in MySpace’s latest spam-related legal victory, Scott Richter was ordered by a court appointed arbitrator to pay the social networking site $6 million in court costs and damages. The judgment came after Scott Richter and his company, Media Breakaway, were sued for sending messages to MySpace users from phished MySpace accounts promoting a website called Consumerpromotionscenter.com. In a statement, the Richter’s agreed to not appeal the amount and were, “happy to have the matter behind them.” Richter’s former company, OptinRealBig.com, was ordered to pay Microsoft $7 million to settle similar charges in 2005.

According to the court arbitrator, Phillip Boesch, the messages were sent from phished Myspace accounts at a time when the site only had two staff members dedicated to security issues. Recently, MySpace was awarded a much larger anti-spam judgment of $230 million in its case against Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines. MySpace has since added a staff of forty to deal specifically with securtiy, and is continuing in its efforts to rid its site of spamming and phishing.

For More info on this case, read Robert McMillan’s article here.

A dinner was held May 28, in Camarillo, CA, to discuss the possibility of a new performance marketing association. The dinner drew several accomplished members of the affiliate marketing industry, and was put together in part by Brooke Schaaf, who gave a great recap of the night on ReveNews. Notably, Brad Waller of ePage and Rebecca Madigan of AffiliateClassroom shared the research they had done on the logistics of creating the new association which would focus solely on performance/affiliate marketing.

The main goals of this new organization would be to hire a voice to lobby on behalf of affiliate marketing, promote performance marketing, educate those interested in the industry and work out more specific standards and best practices. The DMA, Internet Advertising Bureau, and the Internet Commerce Association are all good organizations to look to and are supportive of affiliate marketing. However, the affiliate marketing industry is looking for an avenue to represent its specific interests. According to Brooke Schaaf, “There was a strong consensus that we need fund something like a nonprofit that can support paid staff, because volunteer efforts have not and will not have the impact we are looking for.” The association would consist of a board or directors elected by dues paying members who would hire and fire staff including the executive director.

The need for a new performance marketing trade group has been highlighted recently by the amendment of a New York state law which forces out-of-state online retailers to pay NY state sales taxes. The law has caused Overstock.com to drop its more than 3,400 New York affiliates as of June 1 in order to avoid the law. Both Amazon.com and Overstock have since filed legal complaints against New York in the state’s supreme court, asking for an injunction and declaring the law unconstitutional. The negative implications for the affiliate marketing industry could be huge if the court rules in NY’s favor and other states like California pass similar laws. Clearly, a trade group to stand up for affiliate marketing in the future, at least in the political arena, is worth considering.

To continue discussing the possibility of the new performance marketing trade group, Rebecca Madigan is organizing a meeting before Affiliate Summit in Boston on Saturday, August 9.

For more info on the New York Tax Law issue, Lisa Buquet has comprehensive coverage and insight.

Lashback had a great time attending Affiliate Summit ‘08 West, which was held February 24-26 in Las Vegas. Click the link below to view a short media clip of our sales specialist explaining how the Lashback Team helps clients with email compliance:

Lashback At Affiliate Summit 2008 West Distributed by Tubemogul

The crew at Lashback looks forward to attending Affiliate Summit ‘08 East in Boston, August 10-12.

Here, we present our coverage on the third installment of Mark Brownlow’s excellent five part post: The New Email Marketing: Accepting Accountability. 

Accountability is the key to keeping your brand trusted.  Not only should you take credit for the results of your campaigns, but you should also embrace responsibility for each email offer that is sent on your brand’s behalf- the good and the bad.

ISP’s and users are increasingly relying on reputation tied directly to accountability to decide which emails are worthy of their inboxes.  Making your company visible and accountable to subscribers and ISPs gains trust, which is the foundation for reputation and deliverability.  In other words, make it obvious to your subscribers that they are receiving emails from you, not some third party that they don’t know or trust.  And if you are a third party- be proud, professional and send mail that converts. Take the deliverability high road through authentication, and pay close attention to the mail you have going out.  This means watching your affiliates and partners and working with them closely because what they send is a manifestation of you.

Recognition is also an important aspect of accountability.  Having an appropriate from line that is easily recongnized by recipients is the first step in ensuring that mail is well received. Mark Brownlow links to other professionals for more tips on recognition from Jordan Ayan, the Emma Blog and Chad White.  We found the following quote from Jordan Ayan in Media Post’s Email Insider to accurately describe the shift in today’s email marketing climate.

"The bottom line is that the email landscape is shifting. While many emailers worry about complying with CAN SPAM (as they should from a legal perspective), the reality of the marketplace is that reputation is much more important — and the rules are more stringent — than the legislation."  -Jordan Ayan

At LashBack, Compliance is the foundation of reputation. If you can not get over the low bar of complying with federal law, worrying about advanced concepts that improve deliverability is putting the cart before horse.