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If You Make It a Widget… Is It Compliant?

Sep 16 2008

When I first saw this in another email service providers email newsletter last week, I did not know quite what to think of it. My first reaction was great idea for the small business that adds one or two people a day to their email lists. My second reaction was how in the heck was this a best practice or Can Spam compliant? 

Now since I don’t have all the data on this new widget yet my post here might be a little off. And that being said I welcome anyone from this company to respond and let me know how it works. 

My fear is as follows:

1. You are making it easy for people to add emails of those that have not opted in

2. You are setting an idea in your client’s minds that it is OK to just add email addresses collected from sources outside of a double opt in form THAT they did not initiate.

3. Making is easy does not make it right

Now for the other side of my thoughts. 

1. It is a clever idea

2. IF there is a system in place that triggers a welcome message THAT was asked for in an offline collection point then it might be little better.

3. IF these “subscribers” do welcome that email AND complete the a closed double opt in then it might be okay. 

This widget is a good idea, but I am afraid that the execution is just a way for this ESP to get larger subscriber bases to make more money for themselves and not take the high road of doing the right thing. 

Now I could be completely wrong here. And if so please correct me with the full explanation and the data to back it up. Make me think you made a good decision and are educating your clients how to do the right thing.


Published in Behavioral Marketing, Best Of Email, Best Practices, Deliverability, E-Mail Delivery, E-Mail Marketing, New Marketing Ideas

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One Response

  1. 1
    Ellen Siegel says:
    September 18th, 2008 at 8:48 am

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the tension between best practices and convenience, a topic that many of us deal with on an ongoing basis.

    Constant Contact places a high priority on conformance to best practices, as well as on providing an excellent user experience. While any convenience can be a double-edged sword, effective complex systems are built on a key set of checks and balances. No matter how contacts are added to the system, an account holder is still subject to our Terms and Conditions and Anti-Spam Policy, and all of our existing checks and balances are still in place. We also reinforce these positions with multiple types of education including blog posts, webinars, and monthly newsletters that highlight best practices.

    That said, we do agree with your point about setting expectations, and are planning a widget update within the next few business days that makes the permission constraints more immediately visible to widget users.

    Ellen Siegel
    Director of Technology and Standards
    Constant Contact