In the absence of hard facts pertaining to the negative aspects of renting lists, I think we have to rely on our sense of right and wrong. When that little voice in our heads says, “Lots of people really, really hate commercial email,” we have to listen.

As I start writing for this new (for me) venue “Online Spin,” I am thinking that I need a plan. After all, you the reader are looking for good information that will help you survive out there. If you are like me, you don’t continue to opt in to something for very long unless you end up with real stuff that you can use. And yet, as I try to lay out a plan of attack as to which issues to handle first, other things that happen while I am working on the plan constantly besiege me.

No one, and I mean NO ONE who works in advertising, and particularly media, thinks sweeps is a good idea. Sweeps in broadcast is the most lame-brained scam still in practice in advertising. Sweeps in online is an even DUMBER idea.

Just last week Joe Klein, one of Washington’s most notorious journalists, published his second book about Bill Clinton, titled "The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton." So what does that have to do with The Misunderstood Timing of the Internet? Well, perhaps both the Clinton presidency and the Internet have been similarly misunderstood in a parallel universe kind of way.

It’s a perfectly natural and acceptable practice to have media people keep client secrets. Businesses wouldn’t work without it. But there comes a point when the web of non-disclosures gets so deep and entangled that the industry has a difficult time cleaning house.

Last week, we discussed two ways we might go about cleaning up the email marketing industry. The first way was through industry-wide adoption of “Rules of Engagement” for marketers. The second way, which is the subject of this week’s column, is a certification program for email marketers.

There once was a time when you couldn’t read any trade publication without coming across it. You couldn’t attend any conference or go to an industry shindig without hearing about it. What folks were reading about, writing about, and talking about was Broadband. Broadband was the panacea for all of what was wrong with the way online was going. Banners and tiles and other forms of flat-format creative were no longer capable of delivering on the early promises of response-driven advertising on the Web and something had to be done if the Web was going to become, and remain, a …

A few weeks back, I wrote a column about some of the things I would do if I were president of the IAB. I recommended creating a certification program for email marketers and defining rules of engagement for marketers who want to reach consumers via the Internet. Both of these recommendations caused a bit of a stir among online advertising professionals, and I wanted to discuss exploring these two initiatives a bit further in this week’s Online Spin.

What does the streaming media segment of the industry need to do to get advertisers to seriously consider streaming media when putting together media and marketing plans?

I think it’s probably a good thing that the average marketer doesn’t have a law degree, but it would definitely come in handy sometimes. There are a lot of things that an advertising company can’t do legally that it will sometimes try to get its ad agency to do for it. Media buyers can unwittingly become dupes for sleazy business practices.