Weeding In the Garden Of Good E-Mail

By Leslie Walker

Thursday, January 31, 2002; Page E01
 The Washington Post

A group of Internet companies is starting public tests this week of a new form of commercial e-mail, one that places a special digital seal inside electronic messages in an attempt to signify they come from a "trusted sender."

The idea is to separate legitimate advertising pitches from junk e-mail. Rather than using software to sort through the good and bad, the "trusted sender" program aims to identify messages from merchants that agree to abide by a set of marketing rules. Eventually their specially stamped messages could be allowed to bypass filters that block "spam" -- unsolicited commercial e-mail.

"We are talking about a way to build trust and confidence in e-mail," said Fran Maier, executive director of Truste, the nonprofit Internet group launching the program. "Response rates to e-mail have declined, and that is a problem."

The e-mail certification program is being outlined today at a privacy conference in Washington. Microsoft Corp. and ad network DoubleClick will be among the first to test the system, developed by Truste and the ePrivacy Group, a Philadelphia consulting company. Truste is the industry-backed outfit formed in 1997 that developed the privacy seal now appearing on more than 2,000 Web sites, signifying compliance with industry privacy standards.

Now the group, whose membership includes Intel Corp., Microsoft and AOL Time Warner Inc., wants to do something similar for e-mail.

Let's face it: Something needs to be done about spam. It has escalated beyond the nuisance stage to become an impediment to personal productivity, not just e-commerce. Jupiter Media Metrix, a research firm, estimates that each American on average will receive 1,785 commercial e-mail messages this year, and the volume will more than double by 2006. Forty-three percent of it will be unsolicited, according to Jupiter's projections.

One reason commercial e-mail is spiraling out of control faster than telemarketing and junk paper mail is that it costs far less. Even though response rates on commercial e-mail are dropping, going to 5 percent from 7 percent last year, according to Jupiter, the costs are still lower than what a company pays to reach customers through the telephone or paper mail.

Microsoft is testing the new technology in a customer database that its MSN online service and other company divisions jointly use to send marketing messages to customers. With more than 110 million subscribers to its free Hotmail service, Microsoft is the world's biggest e-mail provider and has a vested interest in controlling spam.

"We want to see the impact on our customers and gauge their reaction to it," said Diane McDade, who is supervising Microsoft's trial. She said MSN subscribers often inquire how they got on the company's mailing list in the first place, and Microsoft is tweaking the technology to let them find out.

Here's how the technology works: To send certified e-mails, companies pay annual fees starting at $4,000 and receive computer gear linked to the ePrivacy Group's servers. The gear generates a unique, encrypted digital certificate for each message before it is sent, then inserts a small "stamp" or seal resembling a postmark at the top of each message. The seal contains the date it was sent and a "click to verify" link.

People who click on the verification link will see Web pages allowing them to check the sender's identity and ensure that the subject title matches the one on the message when it was sealed. Mailers who use deceptive titles or fake return addresses would risk losing their certified e-mail license from Truste.

Truste has support from some privacy advocates, but at least one consultant is skeptical. David Holtzman, former chief technology officer at Network Solutions Inc., said certifying e-mail from reputable merchants wouldn't solve the bigger problem of too many messages from mass mailers. "There is a presumption that I want these companies to communicate with me more, and I am not sure it's true," he said.

So don't think of this as the ultimate spam-slayer. For one thing, the system faces an uphill battle gaining industry participation because its transmission system involves new technology. More to the point, no one really thinks that inserting little logos into messages from Wal-Mart or Nordstrom will stop your inbox from becoming filled with offers like "Buy Viagra Cheap!"

Compounding the problem is a lack of agreement on what constitutes spam. One person's junk mail is another's legitimate offer. And what to do about consumers who wittingly or not sign up for e-mail notifications only to regard the solicitations as spam later? One of the marketing industry's big challenges is to communicate more honestly with consumers about what they will be sending.

Another challenge is to provide more effective ways for people to remove themselves from electronic mailing lists. While reputable merchants honor removal requests, "click to unsubscribe" in most spam has the reverse effect. It merely confirms that your address is valid to the sender, who can then sell the address for a higher price to other mass mailers. Truste's seal is meant to separate the real from the fake "unsubscribe" links.

"We hope this seal will give people more confidence to understand that the opt-out mechanism will be honored," said Vincent Schiavone, chief executive of the ePrivacy Group.

The spam problem is gaining urgency as more commercial notices such as bank statements and utility bills migrate online. With more mail moving online, people can't afford to have "Consolidate Your Debt" e-mails distracting them from real credit card bills.

Worse, people worry that important mail will go astray, as happened last month when AOL's spam filters blocked nearly 100 notices that Harvard University had e-mailed to applicants telling them whether they had been accepted.

To avoid those problems, people need all the weapons they can get in the spam war, and certified e-mail might add something to today's weak arsenal.

Leslie Walker's e-mail address is walkerl@washpost.com.