• by Kate Kaye , June 3, 2004

Internet privacy watchdog TRUSTe has lent online publishers and e-commerce companies an immeasurable amount of credibility and confidence in the minds of consumers. Now the Web sentry is rolling out its certification services to other Internet sectors, such as email. And today's In the Trenches subject, Colin O'Malley, product manager at TRUSTe, plays an integral role in creating products that keep the Web on the up-and-up.

Following work as an analyst and three years as a product manager at permission-based email marketing firm NetCreations, Colin gained the solid understanding of the email marketing industry required to lead development of TRUSTe's third-party email certification program, Bonded Sender. The email "whitelist" program was created in partnership with email infrastructure products and services provider IronPort Systems, and currently certifies 40 companies including Google, CNET Networks, and Hallmark. The Net guardian is also developing a point-of-collection email certification for site registration forms to assure consumers that registration will not lead to unsolicited email.

It's Colin's job to oversee TRUSTe's products throughout all phases, making sure that the each product's original vision is adhered to. To do so, he mediates among many facets of the organization, from the public relations and marketing departments to the policy department--and handles financial projections, tech specifications, and training of employees.

What are your favorite online destinations in the a.m.?
I rely on a lot of things to come to me by email and RSS. Politech [a politics and technology mailing list at www.politechbot.com], SPAM-L [a spam prevention and discussion mailing list at www.claws-and-paws.com/spam-l/spam-l.html] is another one I keep tabs on. ... MarketingSherpa.com, ClickZ, PaidContent.org are others.

I'm a Mac user, so I use NetNewsWire [RSS Web news reader software for Mac OS X]...and of course I read The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Wired, things like that.

I tend to rely more on a community of people. ... We sort of feed each other headlines as they come up.

What other sites do you visit frequently?
The Boing Boing blog [BoingBoing.net] is great. It collects random and ludicrous things from around the Web. I'm a big music guy. ... Glorious Noise is good. Altmusic.com is like my home page; I go there constantly.

What is the most challenging part of your job?
If you distill the job role, it's trying to prioritize ideas and execute on a limited set of them. ...The strategy part is weeding out the ones that are feasible, and that's a challenge.

The problem is that people like their own ideas. ... There's a temptation to execute on too many fronts. If you execute halfheartedly, it's much worse than not executing at all. Part of my job is to tell my bosses 'no,' which is an unusual role to play. Being proactive with communication is critical.

What do you like best about your job; what keeps you interested?
I believe in what we do as a company. I have a real passion for execution. ... I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction from taking an idea and making it real. Every time that happens, I grow as a person and I grow professionally.

How are privacy concerns affected by the integration of online and offline media?
What's going on in the offline and online world seems separate, but they influence each other immensely. ... Privacy standards have been really different offline and online; standards for sending mail into somebody's physical mailbox have been more lenient.

In the offline world we have the do-not-call registry. The natural extension of that is, 'Well, I have an email problem, why can't I have this for my email inbox?' From a consumer perspective, once you have a protection established, it's very tempting to have it protect all mediums. It is something we're anticipating can become an issue.

What's the most divisive online policy issue right now?
Deliverability is a huge sore point right now. It's getting really hard as a sender of email to feel confident that your message is going to reach all the people you're sending it to. Delivery from all perspectives [from the ISP (Internet Service Provider) perspective, the sender's perspective], between all those different interests, [and] carving out a consistent set of standards has been a real challenge and a source of a lot of contention in the industry.

There's not a clear set of guidelines. The whole industry is suffering from a hangover effect from the spam wars. A lot of rough solutions have been rolled out.

Something has to be done because email as a medium is being threatened.

Do you know someone who deserves a salute from MediaPost's In the Trenches? Let us know! Contact Kate Kaye at kate@mediapost.com.