I Am a Spammer

Get out the scarlet "S"...apparently I am a spammer.

I've just reviewed my email campaign reports for the past few months at Constant Contact and in both July and August one person (assumedly NOT the same person) tagged my email as spam.

• Never mind that I run a double opt-in email newsletter.
• Never mind that if someone asks me to add them to our list I do it through our Web site so that they still need to confirm their interest in receiving flyte log.
• Never mind that in every email newsletter there's an unsubscribe link at the bottom and the top of each email.
• Never mind that I write about ethical email marketing and I follow the CAN-SPAM regulations perfectly, as imperfect as they are.

Am I pissed? You bet I am. Who the hell are these people who subscribed through a double opt-in process and then said I was spamming them?

Can I argue the point? Can I face my accuser as I could if this were a court of law?

No, I must wear my scarlet "S" and carry the shame with me the rest of my days. (OK, maybe I'm being a little over dramatic.)

I've been told that on AOL it's easier to click the "spam" button than to unsubscribe from an email newsletter. I'm not sure if this is true, but since AOL is the Internet with training wheels, it may well be.

I know that many people are afraid of unsubscribing from a newsletter as this is often a ruse spammers use to confirm email addresses, but of course that's really only true on unsolicited or opt-out email campaigns. I'd like to think that my subscriber base is a little more sophisticated and Internet-savvy than the average user (since I'm writing to Web site owners) but maybe the fear of being spammed is overwhelming.

Is this just something that legitimate email marketers must put up with? Is this just another way in which spam hurts all of us?

While I don't want to harangue the people who called me spammer (well, in a small way maybe I do) I would like them to let me know why they thought I was spamming them. It would be nice if there was some sort of feedback mechanism.

Rich Brooks
I Am NOT a Spammer

Comments

[Tim]

I oversee a a half dozen or so large, double-opt-in email lists that send out hundreds of messages daily. I've also subscribed my server to AOL's "feedback loop" whereby I get notified every time someone clicks AOL's "spam" button on an email that was sent through any of my lists. I get several each day with a similar setup to yours where unsubscribe information is included clearly in each email and the list was double-opt in.

I've seen the AOL interface and would agree that it is easier to click the 'this is spam' button... almost even easier than clicking the delete button.