For anyone that uses email and especially for those that use it as part of your integrated marketing plan, something major happened last week. One of the companies responsible for hosting spammers was finally shut down. Robert “Dude” Spellings, Jr, one of our systems developers and email guru, enlightens us all on why it took so long for their shut down and why this is such a big deal for anyone that uses email.

Enjoy,

Steve

Most people have probably never heard of a company called McColo, but it is likely that you may feel the effects of this company having been shut down by its Internet service providers last week. McColo was apparently one of the more nefarious email hosting providers and has been identified as the source of as much as 75% of all the spam in the United States, according to the Washington Post.

As someone interested in legal email marketing, this case raises the obvious question: if everyone (people in the Internet security industry) knew that McColo was responsible for all that spam, why weren’t they shut down sooner? Why were they allowed to host companies that sent out spam for so long? Every legitimate email marketer should be concerned about this because the practices of McColo and the companies it hosted are part of the reason that email delivery is such an issue, even when legitimate companies go the extra mile to ensure that they are not sending unwanted emails.

The Washington Post article shed some light on why McColo was allowed to operate in the shadows for so long: “We rather like knowing where the bad activity is coming from, so protecting our networks is easier,” noted Joe Stewart, a security researcher for SecureWorks. This is exactly what I would expect to hear from someone who is using the most current spam-filtering methods that use IP reputation, feedback loops, and other sophisticated tools to help identify and block spam.

Companies like SecureWorks, offering security monitoring services and anti-spam software, have gotten very good at what they do. They’ve developed very effective ways of blocking spam that cause very little inconvenience to the end user. It’s really a beautiful example of how a true free market with virtually unlimited participants has created its own solution to filter the good from the bad that is far more effective than a law imposed by government such as CAN-SPAM.

I am not saying that CAN-SPAM has been a failure because I do think it has improved things; but because of the hard work of participants in the email/Internet community, CAN-SPAM is largely irrelevant these days. Why? CAN-SPAM represents the bare minimum that email marketers must do to avoid legal action. Doing only the bare minimum is usually not enough to get your messages delivered into inboxes. Only one thing will increase the likelihood that your message will be successfully delivered to your email recipients: following industry best practices.

Email marketing best practices include:

1. using opt-in lists only,

2. ensure that you are constantly scrubbing your list of recipients who no longer wish to receive emails from you and/or those who never respond to your offers,

3. create email content that people want, and

4. always use an email service provider that also follows the rules and best practices (McColo was obviously not one of these email service providers)

That being said, why didn’t McColo ever get shut down under CAN-SPAM? My guess is because it is too difficult to enforce on an ISP coupled with the fact that the private sector pretty much had them neutralized in terms of spam. CAN-SPAM focuses on the email sender, not the ISP (the pass-through or gateway between the email sender and email recipient). The idea that McColo may have been an innocent bystander in this whole mess is ridiculous. Any ‘good’ hosting company knows what kinds of activities are happening on their network. They want to make sure their digital reputation stays in good standing. So, McColo can try to play the ignorance card, but it’s a ruse.

In the short term, expect to see a reduction in the amount of spam email making its way to your inbox. In the long term, you can probably bet that it will ramp up again and continue to be a pest. As one bad provider is shut down, another will most likely become the host for all those spam emails. For legitimate email marketers, it’s another cost of doing business on the Internet. Just be aware of your email host provider’s practices to ensure you don’t get caught up in the mess.

Thanks for reading,

Dude

Tags: email marketing, emarketing