A recent Associated Press story on Yahoo! uncovers a new solution for recipients of spam to fight back…and beat spammers at their own game.
Blue Security has a solution called Blue Frog that works by using a “do-not-spam” list they call “Do Not Intrude”.
Here’s a quick overview of how it works:
# Users add e-mail addresses to a “do-not-spam” list and Blue Security creates new addresses (“honeypots”) designed to attract and catch spam
# When a honeypot address gets spam Blue Security tries to contact the spammer and then triggers the Blue Frog software on the user’s computer to send a complaint
# If enough people complain it will knock out the spammer’s website and hopefully encourage them to stop sending emails to the “do-not-spam” list.
Simple enough! But fundamentally flawed, I think.
Category: E-mail Acquisition
_Jay Aber, is President of “24/7 Canada Inc.”:http://www.247canada.com and one of the industries most influential leaders. He is a member of the Board of Directors and the Internet Best Practices Task Force, and Chairs the Emarketing Council for the “Canadian Marketing Association”:http://www.the-cma.org. He is also on the Board of the “Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada”:http://www.iabcanada.com. He is the founder and past president of “AIMS”:http://www.aimscanada.com/ (Association of Internet Marketing & Sales), Canada’s largest association of Internet sales professionals and marketers. He is also a regular columnist with “Canadian Direct Marketing News”:http://www.dmn.ca/ ._
_As division president, Jay has built 24/7 Canada into the leading permission-based email list manager/broker and Internet advertising sales company in Canada._
*One Degree: Congratulations on the launch of 24/7 Search in Canada. How has the market responded so far?*
The market has been very positive. Many of our clients are first timers, or are in traditional marketing vs. IT, so the fact that we are solid marketers introducing them to search marketing means that there is already a connection or comfort level established. Our clients so far run the gamut from universities looking to attract applications from a wider population and encouraging people to apply on line, to tour companies trying to fill charter flights to the UK, to professional sports teams looking to sell incremental tickets. All have found paid search to be a great way too boost their acquisition campaigns. And with our proprietary Decide DNA technology, we are able to automatically optimize bids, rank and creative to achieve ROI targets across multiple search engines. We’re also helping Canadians take advantage of the Yahoo! Search Paid Inclusion opportunity — another pay per clickthrough search channel that ensures hard to index Web pages and content are listed in the Yahoo! Search (ex-Overture) engine.
*One Degree: Some people (and by that I mean me) have questioned the value of e-mail as an acquisition tool. How do you answer concerns about poor ROI and possible brand damage from ill-conceived e-mail acquisition campaigns?*
Live 8, the “20 years later” version of the original Live Aid concerts in 1985, is set for this Saturday, July 2. I have four tickets and I am looking forward to the Barrie (Toronto) event. I know that the aim of this event is to focus awareness, and action, on global poverty and the upcoming G8 Summit in Scotland. Make Poverty History – do you remember seeing any of those TV commercials with actors and musicians snapping their fingers to signify how often somoeone in tne world dies due to poverty? – is getting lots of attention and co-branding with the Canadian event. Lots of companies are supporting Live 8 but why aren’t more of them using this as a better marketing tool…or to capture permission?
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