The Pontiflex Blog

Can I sell your email address?

March 7, 2008 at 10:33 am Arun Krishnan Leave a comment

(The answer is no…unless…)

Erick Obeck explores different options available to companies about licensing email addresses to third parties in this well thoughtout article. The three option:

1) never sell email addresses

2) sell email addresses through disclosures at the time of submission or a privacy policy

3) provide subscribers with the option of a single point of universal unsubscription.

I like option two best. Except that the consumer should be told explicitly about the licensing of the email address (and not through a privacy policy written in light gray, font size two, that’s so long it makes War & Peace look like a wiki stub).  In a world of information overload, it’s unfair to force the user to spend minutes sifting and processing the different options. There are three advantages to this:

1. The consumer will see how the advertiser offer benefits them and they’ll be more receptive.  Consider how receptive user are when Amazon or Netflix gives recommendations.

2. The advertiser will only receive leads from genuinely interested consumers. This will save on follow-up marketing costs and improve conversion rates.

Want my e-mail?  Just ask me. And make it clear that you are asking me.  Is that too much to ask?

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