Ken Magill was right: The recent FTC Spam Summit was a real snoozer. Maybe it was the oppressively humid weather in D.C. this time of year that’s conducive to snoozing. More likely, it was due to our own misplaced expectations that such an event could ever be more than a big “show ’n tell.” Never mind that we’d heard all the speeches and solutions before and that not much had changed since the last Summit. This simply wasn’t the forum for examining the truly systemic issues or questioning the wisdom of the industry’s strategies and tactics. Debating those things in front of a regulatory body simply wasn’t on the agenda, and it was probably unrealistic to ever think it could be.

Nonetheless, those are precisely the things we should be debating in our industry. Trevor Hughes of the ESPC set the stage by arguing that there are really two classes of spam—spam that is malicious and spam that is annoying. His point was that today’s real problem is with the malicious spam that comes from the bad players, not legitimate companies. The inescapable conclusion was that the answer isn’t further legislation since the bad players operate outside of the law anyway. While it's a good message for the FTC to hear as it considers further rule making under CAN-SPAM, it didn’t go far enough.

After acknowledging those two classes of spam, we should be talking about how to deal with them. No one disputes that both are undesirable, but applying the same tactics used to combat the malicious spam to that which is annoying is what produces “false positives” and endangers the reliability of the medium for legitimate commerce. In my mind, reconciling email security with legitimate commerce—balancing the scales—is the critical challenge facing our industry today. Admittedly, my attempt to address this challenge at the FTC Summit fell flat. (Right message, wrong forum.) Yet, I’m convinced this is the real debate we need to have. And we do need some new thinking about the roles that different stakeholders (consumers, ISPs and senders) can and should play.

If the FTC Summit isn’t the right forum, what is? We need a new blueprint for email. Where can we come together to debate the systemic issues and arrive at more coherent, comprehensive solutions that satisfy both our security and commercial concerns? We can’t continually parade into Washington, D.C., with nothing new to tell and nothing new to show. At some point, the FTC’s patience will wear thin…as it should. If industry wants to retain the latitude of self-regulation, industry must have more to show for its efforts. We’ll invite government intervention if we don’t.

—Dave Lewis

the voice of email

Welcome to the Email Experience Council's blog, a forum for the email marketing industry's leading voices. On these pages, you'll find the opinions and thought-leadership that's driving the next evolution of email.

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the voices of email

The Email Experience Council's membership includes many of the brightest and most committed email marketing experts. We're pleased to have some of them share their insights here on these pages. Our blog contributors include:

Elie Ashery is the president and CEO of Gold Lasso, and is responsible for the company’s vision and strategy execution. Before joining Gold Lasso, he co-founded Newsletters.com in 1997, selling it to The Tribune Cos. in 2000. He then worked for IncenSoft, focusing on email marketing while there. Read more.

Amy Bills is the senior manager of field marketing at lead optimization company Bulldog Solutions. She is responsible for lead generation and the go-to-market execution of Bulldog's new products and initiatives. Amy was previously the editorial team leader of Freescale Semiconductor’s internal creative agency and a senior editor at Hoover’s Online. Read more.

Nicholas Einstein is director of strategic and analytic services at Datran Media. Specializing in email and CRM strategy, he helps some of America’s top brands leverage online channels to communicate more effectively with their customers and prospects.

Lisa Harmon is a principal at Smith-Harmon, a creative services consultancy dedicated to email marketing strategy and production. She works with marketers to increase clickthrough, maximize revenue, and infuse delight into their email creative. Lisa is also the blogger behind edm.smith-harmon.com, an ongoing commentary on the best (and worst!) in email marketing creative. Read more.

Chip House is ExactTarget's VP of marketing services, leading the teams responsible for client success. He was named to BtoB Magazine’s 2005 “Who’s Who in B-To-B,” for being a vocal proponent of legitimate commercial email and an active lobbyist regarding spam and privacy issues. Read more.

Spencer Kollas is the director of delivery services at StrongMail, helping maximize customers’ email deliverability rates. He was previously director of deliverability services for Premiere Global Services. Spencer is an active member in the Email Sender & Provider Coalition, Messaging Anti-Abuse Work Group, the Anti-Phishing Work Group and, of course, the eec. Read more.

Stephanie Miller is VP of strategic services for Return Path, the leading email performance company. She works with marketers to earn a higher ROI and response from their acquisition and retention email programs—developing content, contact and segmentation strategies, along with testing, measurement and production programs. Read more.

Erick Mott is the director of marketing and corporate communications for Habeas, the leader in email reputation management services. He has a rich background in marketing and communications strategy and execution for such companies as Nokia, MarkMonitor, GlobalFluency, Cisco Systems, Creator Connection, Sun Microsystems, Philips NV, Elm Products and CBS Television. Read more.

Jeanniey Mullen is the Email Experiene Council's founder and the global EVP and CMO of global online publishing company Zinio. She is a thought leader and visionary in the email and digital marketing field. A columnist for ClickZ, she has published numerous papers and is a frequent speaker. Read more.

Charles Stiles is the VP of worldwide business development at Goodmail Systems. In his role, Charles is focused on helping generate a better understanding of the email environment and potential solutions for a better consumer experience. He currently serves as the chairman for the Messaging Anti-Abuse Work Group. Read more.

Jeremy Swift is director of client relations for email service provider BlueHornet. He helped form BlueHornet’s founding team in 2000 and has been responsible for client services and marketing strategy since the company’s inception. Jeremy is known for his ability to articulate technical information in ways that clearly resonate with today’s online marketer.

DJ Waldow is an account manager at Bronto Software. He works with Bronto’s largest clients to help them achieve and surpass their marketing goals. An active member of the email marketing community, DJ posts regularly on the Email Marketer’s Club, publishes a bi-weekly email marketing best practices newsletter, and films BrontoFire.

Chad White is the Email Experience Council’s director of retail insights and editor-at-large. He founded and is the author of the Retail Email Blog, a blog dedicated to tracking the email marketing practices of the largest online retailers. Chad regularly writes major research reports on email marketing and is an Email Insider columnist for MediaPost. Read more.