The Purposeful Email Account

As a consumer, it is a good idea to have three different email accounts setup.

Personal/Business Email Account - The first purposeful email address should be used exclusively for friends, family or business. These trusted individuals, in your contact list, should be made aware of the purpose of this email account:

mypersonalaccount@example.com

Make it clear, that you do not want your trusted people to share this address with anyone else, including mass emailing jokes and chain emails, any "Send to a friend" or "Invite a friend" services from a third party vendor, or the entering of your email address on ballots and surveys (both online and paper-based). Generally this is a paid (ex: cable/dsl) or business account.

The Commerce and Transactional Email Account - The second purposeful email address should be used for dealing with trusted businesses, such as utility providers and banks, distributors, etc. The purpose of this email allows you to separate personal emails, from advertising or transactional emails:

mycommerceemail@example.com

If you want to receive emails for your daily business transaction, you can have a folder and rule setup for your Accounts Payable and Receivable. If you want a folder to receive advertising on the latest products and services, which you sell and receive, you can have a folder for the different distributors.

The Group Board Email Account - A recommended third purposeful email address should be used for group emails, such as public newsgroups, message boards, and other online services that require an email address for subscription purposes. These type email of email accounts are more likely to expose your email address to spam do to the public nature of there use.

mygroupboardemail@example.com

The reason for creating the purposeful email accounts comes down to one simple point. There is too much real spam congesting the internet already. If you only have one account, then it is more often inadvertently exposed to the public internet. The more this happens, the more your single email account can be vulnerable to spam attacks by external parties, whether this is intended or not.

Comments from a far

Found this website kinda of randomly, while researching some PIPEDA information... It talks about several Key factors for marketers when looking to market to Canadians - a report published by Marketing Sherpa.

Some of the tips are very funny; our strong relationship with hockey is mentioned a few times, and the "Looooong" winters - LOL - that we have here and the "Short" summers... Some times I love when things like this are produced and published - makes me smile and wonder where some of these thoughts truly come from.

Any way the key point I have issue with seems to be the idea that PIPEDA and CAN-SPAM are two related law... Guess what - THEY ARE NOTHING ALIKE...

Here are my comments posted to them, in case they decided to moderate them ;)

PIPEDA and CAN-SPAM are about as similar as apples and oranges... CAN-SPAM is a marketing law dealing with the rules, regulations and structures to have a "legal" online marketing program.

PIPEDA is a "PRIVACY" law, and has nothing to do with email marketing or spam... It has everything to do with how you can collect, use, store and maintain Personal information on a Canadian buyer. There are 10 fundamental principles that you need to follow - find them here.

For a Canadian comparison to CAN-SPAM you need to look at Senate Bill - s235 (The Spam Act).

Also for businesses I'd recommend reading the PIPEDA Checklist prepared by 4 leading Canadian Privacy Practitioners: http://tinyurl.com/PIPEDA

I'm Certified

I just received word that I have officially passed and am now certified as a CIPP/C (Certified Information Privacy Professional - Canada).

About the CIPP/C:

The CIPP/C is a standalone credential that recognizes the privacy issues that continue to evolve across the Canadian private sector. The program is targeted to the specific needs of Canadian privacy professionals as well as anyone who manages information that is subject to Canadian jurisdiction.

Certification and Training managed by: The IAPP

DMA investigation of the EEC is in

As mentioned in the previous Direct Mag article the DMA planed on investigating Earth Day mailings sent to the the EEC's member base (For those that didn't get the letter, Laura posted the full text here), and implement some changes to the way the EEC operates. I've noticed some odd things contained within the letter:

1. Quote: "We have also determined that the list was not directly provided to VIV magazine, but to VIV’s hired electronic fulfillment company. Because the current eec co-chair, Jeanniey Mullen is employed by VIV"
   * [From: Viv Magazine Digital - support@notification.zinio.net] - Zinio is where Jeanniey works not Viv - Zinio was the fulfillment company.
   
2. Quote: "We also understand that some people received two notification emails instead of the intended one."
   * I got THREE messages - view the messages here: EEC: Good Intentions Gone Bad

Too bad these discrepancies are here, I would have been happy with the answer otherwise :(

Habeas Study Confirms Strong, Ongoing Demand for Email

Yesterday Habeas and Ipsos, announced the finding of their 2008 email study which finds that there is still a very strong preference for email and the expectation that this will continue to be the case for several more years.

Some very interesting findings include that the majority of people trust companies that use opt-in email, have the ability to customize communications and can reliably get messages delivered. While having a strong privacy practice gets you bonus points, many people still believe that two-thirds of companies are still sharing their data with third parties.

Report Highlights include:

Email's Vitality

• 67% of respondents prefer email over other online vehicles
• Consumer opinion of the future importance of email registered far above future expectations for other online channels.
  

Consumer Concerns Regarding Online Threats Increasing

• 96% expressed concern about being victimized by email fraud, up from the 62 percent finding in the 2007 report.
• 43% of respondents voiced concern over mobile spam and virus threats.
  

Online Reputation Management Best Practices to Build Trust

• 88% of respondents said they would like organizations to give them more choices over the content and frequency of the emails they receive.
• 80% of participants favour doing business with organizations that use opt-in permission to send them email.
• 75% of participants prefer engaging with organizations that exhibit strong privacy practices.
  

Online Business Practices to Avoid

• 25% of respondents lose faith in an organization that is unable to deliver email reliably.
• Daily email messages ranked with pop-up advertisements as the most damaging online tactics to a company's online reputation.
• 80% of respondents are not comfortable with businesses sharing their email address.
• 80% feel that a business' reputation is negatively affected if it shares customer email addresses with third parties.
• Internet users believe that about two thirds of companies are likely to share their email addresses with third parties.

Customer service is important

Sorry this is not an email post, although is can easily be related, the lesson is equally important when dealing with customers regardless of the contact method.

Tonight while watching sitting at home with the family, I received a call from a telemarketer - not too uncommon, but the resulting conversation has likely caused this organization to loose my business in the future - depending on the response I receive from my email to their privacy team. Here is my response to this phone call (via email to the company):

Dear [Removed] Privacy Representative,

Please add me to your global phone suppression files, I would like a forms of Telephone sales promotions to stop immediately.

Tonight (at approximately 9:00 pm EST) I received an incredibly rude call from one of your phone representatives. The caller ID shows the origin of the call from [Removed] (Phoenix AZ) that began with the phrase "I need to talk to the person in charge of your [Removed] service". There was no introduction as to who they were calling on behalf off or who they were (there name was not given at all during the brief conversation), the representative also need to be prompted to identify the company he was calling on behalf of and what he was looking for. As a customer I will not let this type of service go unnoticed and unreported.

My phone numbers are as follows: [removed].

Please let know when this has been completed.

Every touch point is a possible has the potential to build and strengthen a relationship with a company or, as shown, ruin the chances of gaining a new customer. I guess we sill see what happens with this message.

IAPP | Privacy After Hours event

Last night the IAPP hosted networking events in several different locations across North America, Europe and Australia. Luckily there was a local event here in Toronto that was easy to find and attend.

Meeting with several individuals that share the same concerns and experiences of your daily life is highly rewarding and gives you the opportunity to discuss the difference and the key privacy aspects your program or other relevant privacy related issues in your local market place.

One of the items that sticks out was the discussion around notice of collection source and notices of the sender... In Canada the Privacy legislation (PIPEDA) states that the sending party is required to;

• Clearly identify your organization
• Provide the ability to opt-out of messages
• Provide a link to your privacy statement
• Have the consent of the individual who's private information is being collected (email is considered private information - Meaning you need consent to send a person email)

Watch for the next IAPP meeting in a city near you, it's well worth the experience.

Learn more on how PIPEDA effects your email deployments can be found here.