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New Legal Hurdles For Email And One Big Change

Pick One - Spam or not Spam

I came across two interesting articles on internet Retailer (↑) in my email inbox today . I thought I’ll share them with you. Let’s start with the not so good news.


New Email Laws in Canada in 2012


Canadian law makers create FISA -- Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act -- which will be in effect in 2012.

As long as you want to reach Canadian consumers or by Email you will need to adhere to this new law.

The law will apply if:
  • You want to reach Canadian consumers
  • You are using equipment (e.g. servers) inside Canadian borders.

It doesn’t matter where you are located or where you are sending your commercial emails from.

Most important implication: Opt-in first is a strict requirement!

You’ll need the permission from consumers before you may send commercial email to them. The usual opt-out method which many US-based businesses use today will be prohibited.

Read the full article: A new hurdle for e-mail (↑).

As usual the law will affect regular businesses only. Spammers don’t care.


The One Big Chance: The inbox Goes Mobile


It is a trend that people are connected to the Net and to their email inbox more often and on multiple places. You don’t need to wait till it’s raining and people stay at home at their desktop computer. They take their email everywhere, anytime.

That’s an opportunity, isn’t it.

But you need to be prepared for it. Do your commercial emails display nicely on those mobile devices with the tiny screens? If not, change that.

Thanks to the fact that most if not all social media and networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and G+ as the latest star, connect to your email inbox to some extent. I.e. even the young generation knows what email is. It does not main that they like to consume email but email has one big advantage over the walls on Facebook or the Twitter and Google Plus streams.

It’s an archive, one can sort and use filters. It’s much easier to find a specific message in email than on social media


Read the full article: With consumers communicating on the move, e-mail must go mobile, … (↑)


Hope you like the tips. Let me know.

Yours
John W. Furst

Email Feedback Loops And Some Internet History

[Photo: John W. Furst]
John W. Furst
In 1994 about 14 years ago I started to use the Internet at the University campus. Very quickly Email became one of the most important tools for me and it is still today. However, with the upcoming of spammers and anti-spam measures Email has lost some of it's reliability.

I mean, are you sure you receive all important email messages, or are you sure all your messages you send are received?

I'll show you in a minute what I do to make sure Email works reliably for me, even for most important communication needs. Before that, let me tell you, how it all began for me (scroll down, if you are in a hurry).


How It All Began

Do you remember those times, when the “World Wide Web” and it's HTTP protocol were fairly new. I remember using the following services and protocols to find and research information on the Net. (This was not exactly fun and easy like it is today.)
  • Gopher
  • Archie
  • FTP
  • Email
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Google's Gmail Rejects Regular Email

Andy Beard (↑), who runs a Niche Marketing Blog, wrote yesterday, that Gmail did not deliver a plain text (↑), legitimate email that he had sent.

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 16): 554 The message was rejected because it contains prohibited virus or spam content

Probably one should use the Morse Code (↑) again to make sure emails get delivered? What do you think?

What is more important?

  • Less spam in any inbox or
  • Email Deliverability?

→ Continue reading:

Comic - Comment Policy and no nofollow

Comic
Shrinking Self Esteem, Source: bLaugh.com (↑)


I found this comic today and thought this fits perfectly to my recent post “Small Talk About Business - Comments Closed”.

You might attribute low self-esteem to people who close comments on their blogs. But most likely you will be wrong. Too Low quality comments and comment spammers are said to be the real culprits. However, it's a funny little comic. I hope you like it , too.

I came up with a simple way of addressing the comment-spam problem in a less offensive way.

→ Continue reading:

Email Deliverability Tips

Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.


Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.


Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.


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Small Talk About Business - Comments Closed


Blogs, also known as Weblogs are a great innovation. They allow it to share opinions, but unlike most forums the focus is set on quality posts/articles. Whereas in forums the communication character — almost chat like, sometimes — is in the foreground.

Nowadays you find more and more blogs that have their comments closed. That hurts the communication, doesn't it. Authors of posts ask their reader about their opinion and at the same time they clash them a “Comments closed, but you can leave a trackback” right into their faces. In the case you do not know what a trackback is, I will explain it to you in a minute.

Let us start with a comment first. → Continue reading: