Commentary

Just an Online Minute... Spam Day 2

The second day of the FTC Spam Forum has proven to be slightly more informational than the first. The day started off with a panel on the economics of spam and amidst complaints from almost all of the panelists, who talked about the astounding amounts of money being lost as a result of spam, a voice of reason - that of Bigfoot Interactive's CEO Al DiGuido - put things in perspective. DiGuido said that even though the volume of spam is escalating, legitimate email marketers are actually doing quite well. He said that marketers, faced with diminishing returns on their investments in traditional media, are turning to email marketing in record numbers and are discovering that the email medium is delivering better results.

Of course, this comment was followed by DiGiudo saying that the spam problem, and it IS a problem, will not be solved by government intervention, but rather by an agreement, or better communication, between ISPs and marketers. He said that the solution will have to be based on economics, not legislation. Discuss. (I already did yesterday.)

What's gratifying, to a certain extent, is that I was not the only one complaining about the absence of marketers and agency representatives at the conference. Several people posed the question of "why are email marketers' interests not represented here" to several FTC members, whose only politically-correct response, under pressure, was "we talked to them in preparation for the conference, but in the end it looked like their interests were represented well enough by other conference participants."

Do with that what you will, but I say the next time the FTC decides to hold a forum that has the potential to decide our fates, at least legislatively, we should send some people to make sure all sides of the story are told.

Next story loading loading..