I don't blame them, I suppose. We're all bored of the "one man's spam is another man's crucial email" discussion, but it doesn't excuse misleading people about the facts, and definitely doesn't excuse hypocrisy.
Certain journalists covering the ISP sector have either become so bored by the "one man's spam" discussion that they seem to have forgotten it even existed, or purposely recently ignored it to grab a quick headline, generate a reaction, and then produce an article that didn't appropriately reflect the facts.
OK, let's not criticise them for forgetting the issue - it's only been a debate that's raged since the problem of spam became so over-powering when the Internet first gained mass adoption, after all. Of course journalists could be criticized for selectively not considering the issue at all, and not educating their readers about the scale of the problem that ISPs actually face when trying to weed out authorised, requested email from spam.
If you’ve not caught up, the case in point is the reaction to the latest press release from Return Path about "marketing emails" sent to the inboxes of ISPs. Return Path have produced their own reaction to certain journalist’s take on the release, which seems to reflect disappointment rather than disdain.
The feeling of this ISP Grub blog is more exasperation.
Yes, journalists have to get an angle on a story, but they also have to represent the facts.
They can still be cynical, as is the Guardian on this story, and yet still achieve an accurate representation which highlights the bad practice of email marketers that contributes to the problem of their legitimate emails being recognised as spam.
And journalists serve their audience if they simply decide to produce a straight-up, information focused account of the stats to help their readers in the various considerations in choosing an ISP, as was the approach of Think Broadband, which inspired the Broadband Expert article.
However, there's some which chose a different approach.
Now, say "marketing emails" and the man in the street would be forgiven for thinking "spam". But anyone working in the ISP industry, particularly a committed analyst of the ISP industry, such as ISP focused journalists and bloggers, would know the difference. Should know the difference. In fact, MUST know the difference.
They would have previously looked at the definitions from ISP trade bodies like ISPA or LINX. Both recognise the difference between spam / unsolicited bulk email, and promotional / marketing email that is legitimate and permissioned.
ISPA recognises the role ISPs have in the use of "legitimate and targeted... email [as] an effective way to market products and services" and that "Companies have a right to use email to market their services as long as they act responsibly and within the law." ISPs also have particular products that they sell to companies that allows them to send mass, commercial, permissioned, marketing email, so it would be crazy if such email was chastised when the ISP industry actually enables it to be sent – and makes money from it.
Linx delineates spam from legitimate marketing email as such "UBE [spam] is email that has been sent in large amounts without any explicit requests for it being made. It is sometimes called "junk email" or "spam". At present it usually contains advertising material for commercial ventures of dubious propriety."
And so does the Return Path press release, so quite how certain ISP journalists - with this long continuing debate, with these definitions from the UK's primary ISP policy organisations, and the explicit words in the Return Path release - managed to write the story so wrong is quite amazing.
The study was conducted on emails *requested* by European consumers. Whether as a result of selective editing, taking quotes out of context or merely an inability to read the original release, certain journalists and bloggers didn't communicate that, but just focused on "spam". Comparison website Broadband Finder, which seemed to edit their article to ignore any differentiation between legitimate marketing email and spam, an quoted Return Path's stats on blocked legitimate emails whilst praising ISPs for blocking "spam".
They may be surprised to recognise that "legitimate marketing emails" include such things as their own email newsletter which offers recipients the chance to "Keep up to date with the latest offers" - that means people opt in to receiving promotions and offers from the comparison site's advertisers. (OK, selective editing is one thing, hypocrisy is something else entirely. So are Broadband Finder saying they send spam? And if so, shouldn't the ISP industry be blocking all their email newsletters? - EXASPERATION!)
Self-styled "Mr Sarcasm" at ISP Review may well say "shame" about marketing emails, but any email updates from the ISP Review forum would fall into the category of "marketing emails". The weird thing here is that ISP Review actually wrote an article that showed that social media updates, such as those from Friends Reunited suffer blocks from ISPs, even though they too are legitimate marketing emails, and very often highly desired by the people who have requested them. Moreover, the ISP Review article chose to take an angle on the Return Path release that ran counter to its content. The ISP Review headline was: "Return Path Slams UK ISPs for Blocking Legitimate Marketing Email". Does this refer to the part in the Return Path release that said, "ISPs are just trying to do their jobs. 'ISPs are battling extremely hard to protect their customers from the scourge of spam.'" Ooh, what a slamming! Those ISPs ain't never going to get over those words. In fact, hang on - that's not a slamming. Return Path are saying it's tough for ISPs and they're blocking some emails from some marketers who have made themselves "friendly fire casualties in ISPs’ war on illegal unsolicited bulk email."
Compare those comments with what the Return Path release says about email marketers: "Marketers must understand that they themselves have the most influence over their email deliverability by following email best practice. The recent DMA National Client Email Marketing Survey 2010 shows that while marketers are concerned about deliverability, they still aren’t paying attention to where their emails are going."
Now on the slam scale, that surely doesn't amount to a slap on the wrists to the marketing community, but it's a damn sight more weighty than the comment about ISPs, surely.
I dunno. Everyone wants to get read online, I know, but give me a break – let's avoid headline spam when writing spam headlines.
Pimping out our girls
4 months ago