Whitney McNamara's Sea Monkey Rodeo.
This blog moved over here in August 2006. Come by if you're interested in newer posts.
rss feed
del.icio.us links
My ten most recent del.icio.us bookmarks listed below. Also spliced into the RSS feed, courtesy of FeedBurner.
monthly archives
June 2004
July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
September 2006
contact email
seamonkey (located at) absono.us
creative commons
standard disclaimer
All opinions expressed here are, of course, entirely my own personal views, and do not reflect the views of my employer or its associated companies.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
No one ever got fired for blogging...
...but when it comes to leaking news of a really cool deal before the actual date scheduled for the announcement of that deal? Well, I'll play it safe and leave that sort of thing to Matt. Oh, yeah -- and Brad. And Fred, too.
So the deal is that we (Return Path) have acquired the Bonded Sender program from IronPort. Matt covered many of the reasons that this is a good thing in his post, so I'll just add a couple of likely FAQs that he didn't touch on.
Q: Hey, aren't many of Return Path's clients companies that send commercial email? And now that I think about it, don't you send commercial email yourselves?
A: That's two questions, but yes. To both of them.
Q: Ummm...followup question here. Doesn't that mean that you'll just "relax" the Bonded Sender requirements for your clients and yourselves?
A: No, for any number of reasons. One good reason is that TrustE is still resonsible for the certification process; we can provide a lot of assistance to clients by helping them understand what they need to do to qualify -- and helping them accomplish those things -- but it's TrustE that makes that final decision.
An even better reason that we won't "relax" any Bonded Sender requirements is that such an approach would be a classic example of what my grandfather used to call "cutting off your nose because you're too stupid to realize that cutting off your nose is a really bad idea."
Bonded Sender is essentially a repuation system, and there are two aspects of reputation involved. One part of it is the bonded senders themselves: by submitting their processes and data to third party evaluation, agreeing to abide by the rules of the program, and putting up that cash bond, senders are saying "I am making a public commitment to behave responsibly, accepting that my reputation is at stake. If I fail to live up to my responsibilities, Bonded Sender will know about it and boot me out of the program."
The second aspect of reputation that comes into play is the reputation of the Bonded Sender program itself. ISPs will only participate if Bonded Sender is providing value for them -- i.e. allowing their users to get the email that they actually want without getting spammed. If Bonded Sender develops a reputation for certifying anybody who shows up at the front door, regardless of how those companies actually behave, ISPs will dump the program without a second thought.
And that scenario would be a bad thing for everyone involved -- particularly those who have invested in the program. So, no, hypothetical questioner...while being a Return Path client will definitely give you the information and tools that you need to make yourself an excellent candidate for Bonded Sender approval, you're SOL if expect to sign up for a couple of RP services and receive a "Get Into Bonded Sender" card free.
