IAB Email Committee Issues Guidelines for Obtaining and Using Email Lists; Ethical Email Guarantee to Insure Confidence for Advertisers

Business Wire, Dec 17, 2002

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 17, 2002

Launching its first initiative since forming barely six weeks ago, the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) Email Committee has announced an Ethical eMail Guarantee, a set of suggested guidelines to be applied to the manner of obtaining and use of eMail lists by IAB member companies.

The guidelines will assure advertisers and agencies that proper list sourcing efforts have been adhered to and that disclosure is articulated on insertion orders by IAB member companies.

"There are some who look at email marketing as the problem child of interactive advertising, and to be sure there are indeed areas of concern for us to address," said Mike Mayor, President of NetCreations and chairman of the IAB's eMail committee. "The first step is to separate the responsible marketers from those entities who continue to abuse this rapidly growing channel. By incorporating the EEG into the ordering process, advertisers and list providers will show in no uncertain terms that they are firmly supporting responsible email marketing."

The IAB's Ethical Email Guarantee includes the following assurances for advertisers:

-- List Provider guarantees that all records they deliver to on behalf of the client have specifically agreed to receive third party offers.

-- List Provider agrees to fully disclose the source of any email address record delivered to on behalf of the client, including the exact method by which permission was obtained, upon inquiry from either the client or any individual receiving email from the List Provider on behalf of the client.

-- List Provider assures that it is mailing the contracted volume to unique email addresses in the exact quantity ordered. List Provider will not jeopardize the client's brand by over-delivering above the contracted amount unless specifically requested by the client through an amendment of the contractual terms.

-- List Provider assures that delivered mailings are sent to the exact select criteria designated by the client in the contractual terms as determined by the contact's most recently recorded data with the List Provider.

-- List Provider agrees to honor all unsubscribe requests that may result from the campaign

-- If the List Provider has violated any of these guarantees on a contracted mailing then they will gladly refund the invoiced amount.

Current members of the IAB eMail Committee include NetCreations (Postmaster Direct), Advertising.com, Bigfoot Interactive, Edmunds.com, wk interactive and WashingtonPost.NewsweekInteractive. Companies wishing to join this committee can get further information and sign up on the IAB site, www.iab.net.

About the IAB

Founded in 1996, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is the leading interactive advertising association and represents companies responsible for selling over 75% of online advertising in the United States, including; AOL, CNET Networks Inc., MSN, Overture Services, Walt Disney Internet Group, Yahoo, and 100 others. Its activities include evaluating and recommending standards and practices, fielding research to document the effectiveness of the interactive medium and educating the advertising industry about the use of interactive advertising. Membership includes companies that are actively engaged in, and support the sale of interactive advertising.