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 The days of Mass Commercial E-mail are numbered. This site is an excellent case study in the problems associated with mass e-mail. The lessons here protect you against its pitfalls.
But RSS will return e-mail to what it always did best... personal, one-on-one correspondence. Click on this link for more information about RSS. And click on the orange RSS button below for more information about SiteSell's RSS feeds...
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Dear Reader,
We (the community of responsible online small businesses) understand that ISPs have to filter e-mail that we send to our clients. Spam is overwhelming them.
Filtering algorithms and anti-spam software are complex, will only get more so. And the volume of spam is in the billions. So mistakes (called "false-positives") are inevitable.
We recognize that and we stand ready to suffer some false-positives.
We're willing to deal with the fact that an ISP will occasionally delete
a bona fide e-mail that we send to a client.
After all, we are all partners in the fight against spam.
As such, every online small business should have responsible e-mail
policies in place. And
we must be ready to deal with the fact that an ISP or mail service
will, despite its best efforts, filter out an occasional e-mail from us.
But we are not willing to be blamed, stonewalled, and abused.
We draw the line at...
Problem #1) ISPs and mail services who do not feel the need to whitelist e-mail that their customers specifically say they want
and...
Problem # 2) Filtering providers who do not feel they owe small businesses
an explanation why their legitimate e-mail is being filtered.
Problem #1: ISPs and Mail Services Who Won't Whitelist
Customers of ISPs and mail services expect to get the mail that they
want. However, they also understand that "good mail" might be wrongly filtered, just
as small businesses understand this side effect of fighting spam.
Everyone understands that "false-positives" happen.
At this point, though, we see a difference in how ISPs and mail services
handle the subsequent requests by their customers to receive that falsely
filtered mail...
- Some ISPs do the right thing and enable their customers to "whitelist" e-mail for delivery THROUGH THE FILTER. However...
- Some ISPs do not enable their customers to whitelist.
This is the first of two major problems that are hurting small businesses.
These ISPs are not part of the solution against spam. They are part of the problem
in that they do not relieve the suffering by their customers. They do not
deliver the mail that their customer specifically requests to receive.
These are not responsible, sharing partners against spam. They hide
behind the legalese of being a private network that has no obligation to
deliver the mail. But that is not what they promote publicly while
they try to win new customers.
To convince these ISPs to whitelist, we highly recommend that
small businesses do what we do... educate your customers and
activate them to switch to good, responsible ISPs and mail services
that do enable whitelisting. By doing this, you both provide
a service to your customer, and you help your business by keeping
a line of communication to your customer open.
We show you how to do that in this site.
Problem #2: Filtering Services Who Won't Say "Why"
Small businesses face a second major "anti-spam fallout" problem...
"Filtering providers" are companies that sell filtering services to
large ISPs and mail services. For example, Brightmail sells its
filtering services to Hotmail. Unfortunately...
Most filtering providers will not give you a reason why
your e-mail is being blocked. In other words, they unilaterally
do damage to your business, despite all your good faith efforts
to live up to your responsibilities.
It is, of course, impossible to fix what we do not know is broken.
We are partners in the fight against spam. So we are asking the filtering
providers to inform small businesses why they are being filtered. Since filters are
automated services, it is not technically difficult to provide a
specific reason for being blocked (assuming there is a reason and
that the block is not an accident, a bug, or a vendetta).
If filtering providers refuse to comply, this site shows you, the small business person, how to...
1) educate and activate your customers to complain to the ISPs and mail services (who
are, after all, the clients of filtering providers)
2) educate and activate your customers to complain directly to the large filtering providers like Brightmail (who are generally unknown by the public
and therefore insulated from them)
3) complain, yourself, directly to filtering providers like Brightmail,
the largest and therefore most damaging of the filters -- explain how you
are the victim of false-positives
4) provide us with the data we need in order to consider the viability of launching
a class action suit against large filtering providers such as Brightmail.
Educate and Activate...
And Spread the Word
The implementation of the Deliver My Mail information
and solution in this Web site, which we offer for free, will reduce your individual pain due to the needless, irresponsible loss of mail that is not your fault.
You will benefit personally and protect your business against the side effects of those who claim to fight spam (but hurt you needlessly). That in itself is a good thing for you.
But this site's most important message is to "spread the message." We small
business people have
no voice individually, so we have no stake at the table. That must change. So spread the
Deliver The Mail word... spread it as far and as loud as you can.
Collectively, hundreds of thousands
of small businesses who follow the Deliver The Mail recommendations in this site will create a
tidal wave of customers moving to "whitelisting ISPs" and millions of complaints
(by both end-user and small businesses) against
ISPs, mail services, and filtering providers that are part of the two
major problems above.
If enough marketers take a common action and implement
Deliver The Mail, then abuse and
neglect from the unconscientious ISPs, mail services and filtering providers will disappear.
Bottom line? The playing field is being tilted, again -- this time not by spam, but by how some big business chooses to make money by "fighting" spam.
Those providers are part of
the problem, not the solution.
We, the SiteSell team, are not willing to accept the current state of affairs.
Nor should you.
The future of your online small business depends on how you use
the information in this site. Yes, use it to help yourself now and in the near
future. But go beyond that...
Stand up and be counted. Spread the word.
Click here to get started on "The Ultimate Small Business Guide To Spam And Anti-Spam Management."
All the best,
Ken Evoy
President, SiteSell.com
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