Wow! People are Listening….
This blog opened for business just yesterday. Much to our surprise, almost from the beginning it received a great deal of attention and response from some astonishing people in the email industry. Here are links to a couple of blogs about us:
- Matt Vernhout: Mainsleaze Blog Goes Live
- John R. Levine: The Mainsleaze Blog
- Ken Magill: Anti-Spam Blog Naming Names, Aiming to Shame
In addition to the public posts, Catherine was interviewed yesterday (story hopefully forthcoming). (Note: I was interviewed by Ken Magill, whose credentials are known to anybody in any part of the marketing email or anti-spam worlds. The article showed up about two minutes after I posted this. The link is above.) Best of all, representatives of several ESPs have contacted us. One has signed up for an account, is investigating spam reports for his ESP, and has responded to a couple of reports. The others, although not venturing to sign up (yet), are watching this blog closely and investigating the spam issues that it raises with their customers.
We hoped that this blog would have an impact, not simply allow some antispammers to vent about a type of spam that the existing tools (blocklists and filters) often do not protect users from. We didn’t expect this level of response. We *really* didn’t expect the almost universally positive response that we have gotten from those whose business it is to send bulk marketing email. If we can help them rein in spam and target their emails appropriately, we will be delighted.
On another subject, Laura Atkins of Word to the Wise, a respected deliverability consultant, has posted an excellent blog describing her experience reporting spam from a mainsleaze spammer, whom she does not name directly. However, as I and anyone else who has complained about mainsleaze spam more than once or twice can testify, this mainsleaze spammer’s response to the complaint is stereotypical. Entirely too many such spammers feel entitled to send bulk email to an email address until it opts out, and view a spam report from somebody who refused to opt out of email that they never asked for as a personal attack.
The bloggers hope that this blog will reduce the incidence of these sorts of experiences.