SPAM or emailing?

A dilemma...

[akaTigger]

I have a new client with a database of 2600+ email addresses. These have been collected from mail sent to her thru the web site 'Contact Us.' She has a 'Special Offer' message she wants to send out to the email list. As far as I know, these people did not give their permission to be added to a email database. (Not sure if that makes a difference.)

A friend that works for an ISP has warned me that this would be considered SPAM and if a complaint comes thru to my ISP, my account would be locked. (He used to work for this particular company and knows their policies.) He suggested a bulk email service, but from what I've seen so far, their prices start at 25,000/mailing.

Any suggestions and/or comments would be appreciated.

[rcjordan]

> As far as I know, these people did not give their permission to be added to a email database.

My suggestion would be to forget about this existing database and go now to the source of the contacts and make it CLEARLY and BOLDLY opt-in and then proceed from there. While I expect that some business would be gained, the overall impact would be harmful in the long term. And, yes, from what I understand, your friend is right and you could jeopardize your account.

[akaTigger]

By 'opt-in' do you mean give them the choice to be added to the mail list or not? Does this REALLY cover the issue?

Thanks for your help

[akaTigger]

I've spoken to my client regarding this matter, and she said the addresses on the list are clients of hers, and that she has been doing this for 10 years without a problem. Within the email, to go out to the database, she asks them to contact her if they wish to be deleted from the mailing list.

Is this sufficient to cover myself?

[rcjordan]

>By 'opt-in' do you mean give them the choice to be added to the mail list or not?

Yes, it's usually done by a checkbox on the form. In my case, I have a sentence giving me permission surrounding the submit button AND a pop-up over the email address section.

>Does this REALLY cover the issue?
It's been my experience that it does. I pass these requests along in real time and my sponsors reply (under guidelines I establish). We're approaching 100,000 very detailed requests now over 4 years and I've had 6 complaints. Of those, all acknowledged that they hadn't taken time to read the form and agreed that we had acted responsibly.

>doing this for 10 years without a problem

Good. Use her email account.