Return Path to Launch Sender Score, First Full-Service Reputation Management System

Business Wire, June 27, 2005

NEW YORK -- New service rounds out Return Path's deliverability services for mailers by adding reputation management to accreditation, monitoring, and professional services offerings

Return Path, Inc. today announces the beta launch of Sender Score, the first comprehensive reputation management system for e-mail senders. The system, which aggregates 60 different data points from around the Internet that quantify a mailer's reputation, draws data from a diverse sample of more than 40 million e-mail boxes. Sender Score becomes the latest offering in Return Path's Delivery Assurance Solutions set, joining Return Path's award-winning delivery monitoring tools and professional services, and the Bonded Sender e-mail accreditation program.

Reputation metrics have become critical components of blocking and filtering algorithms at top ISPs and corporate gateways. With Sender Score, e-mail senders will be able to quickly identify e-mail deliverability problems and triggers. Participating e-mail receivers can use Sender Score to research specific domains and IP addresses of mailers to help determine how to handle blocks and filters on incoming e-mail.

Sender Score includes multiple reputation indices that track variables such as complaint data, e-mail send volume, unknown user volume, security practices, identity stability, and unsubscribe functionality - all of which factor into a statistically modeled score that compares individual mailers against the whole sample using a standardized set of best practices. Data for the indices is provided by participating filtering companies and ISPs that currently cover more than 40 million e-mail boxes. The scores will be transparent and available for anyone to review at full launch.

"Sender Score gives mailers a 'mirror' to look at their email programs and see themselves the way ISPs and system administrators see them," says George Bilbrey, General Manager of Return Path's Delivery Assurance Solutions. "By aggregating data from so many different sources and modeling it out, we're able to provide a well-rounded view of e-mail reputation for nearly every company sending a reasonable amount of commercial e-mail today. The benefit for mailers is two-fold. First, they can see how their e-mail program stacks up against others. Second, they can use the data to diagnose and solve problems with their e-mail mailing practices that can contribute to poor deliverability."

The data used to create the Sender Score system comes from dozens of different high quality sources. Return Path has created several industry partnerships with leading technology and data providers to populate the service, including one with Cloudmark, the only messaging security company that strengthens its sophisticated technology with real-time feedback from millions of trusted users; and another with Lashback, a company with sophisticated, proprietary unsubscribe tracking and monitoring tools.

"Honoring unsubscribe requests is one of the pillars of a responsible e-mail program, and it certainly plays a big role in shaping e-mail reputation," says Brandon Phillips, President of Lashback. "Our data is unique to the market, and adding it exclusively to the Sender Score system helps everyone recognize when companies are not playing by the rules. Unsubscribe policies will now be more transparent to everyone evaluating a company's e-mail reputation."

Gary Iwatani, president and COO of Cloudmark, said, "Cloudmark's extensive user community provides a rich set of real-time behavioral data that defines the gray area that often exists between spam and legitimate commercial e-mail. Businesses that wish to communicate with their customers via email can leverage Cloudmark's data to make sure they are following the ever-changing rules of email etiquette. We look forward to participating in this innovative program with Return Path."

Sender Score provides mailers with a deeper layer of delivery monitoring and self-diagnosis than is available anywhere else today. Information shown in the Sender Score system gives companies the first step toward issue resolution with ISPs and blacklists. For participating e-mail receivers, the system provides another way to improve subscriber experiences by reducing false positives and providing safe unsubscribe mechanisms.

Sender Score is slated for full release in August 2005. It will be added to Return Path's Delivery Assurance Solutions as a deeper-level monitoring tool. Data from Sender Score will also be used to power the Bonded Sender Program in future releases of that program.

About Return Path

Founded in 1999, Return Path is an e-mail performance management company dedicated to improving the reach, delivery performance and overall success of permission-based e-mail programs. More than 1,500 companies use Return Path's services to generate superior results from their e-mail programs, taking advantage of Return Path's pioneering innovation in deliverability, ECOA, list hygiene, double-opt-in list acquisition and best practices strategy. Solutions include list maintenance, deliverability, data acquisition, online sampling, marketing technology and e-mail strategy. Return Path Delivery Assurance Solutions are the industry's original and premier e-mail deliverability tools and services, including the Bonded Sender Program for e-mail accreditation, and remain the only full-circle solution for solving e-mail deliverability issues. The company's investors include Sutter Hill Ventures, Mobius Venture Capital, Flatiron Partners, and JP Morgan Partners. For more information, please visit www.returnpath.net, e-mail info@returnpath.net, or call toll-free 866-362-4577.