What Shouldn't
I Do?
There are a number of ways
to avoid being inaccurately labelled a spammer. The golden rule when running
a mailing list, is to never send emails to people who did not explicitly confirm
their intention to receive them. Things can get a little complicated as you
attempt to expand your mailing list membership, so here are some abuses and
inappropriate practices that should be avoided:
- Do not purchase email
lists from companies claiming to have "Thousands of Opt-in email addresses."
You are guarenteed to be disappointed. Most companies in this market do not
bother to validate their lists of email addresses, nor do they confirm whether
or not the people on the list have given permission to be distributed. You
will end up sending your correspondance to people who did not request anything
and who may already be getting annoyed with having their email addresses disclosed
to other companies. If you do purchase a list from someone else,
as soon as you begin to get spam reports, dispose of the ENTIRE list immediately.
If a few users on this list are reporting spams, that means that there are
probably many more addresses on this list that shouldn't be.
- Do not attempt to legitimize
sending your email to unconfirmed recipients by including "Opt-out"
or "Unsubscribe" instructions. There are three reasons not to do
this:
- People should not
have to take the time to opt-out of a mailing list that they didn't sign
up for in the first place.
- Many people will
refuse to follow your opt-out instructions for fear of encouraging further
unsolicited emails because spammers use these opt-out responses to confirm
that an email address is valid.
- Some recipients may
be using multiple email aliases which make it difficult for them to determine
which address was involuntarily subscribed to your list.
- Do not request a receipt
of delivery for your mailing list. First of all, you are never going to go
through all of your receipts to check and make sure that the emails were read.
Second, many people are wary of delivery receipts and consider them an invasion
of privacy. There is rarely a need to use these features.
- Do not use ANY email
harvesting software. Software that spiders webpages for "mailto:"
links, or searches newsgroups for email addresses are never an acceptable
means to develop your mailing list membership. Furthermore, the use of mass-emailing
software, such as programs that guess at and attempt to verify email addresses
should NEVER be used. These practices are universally attributed to spammers.
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