[epub] Free email accounts

["Mark Brownlow" <mark.brownlow@xxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote:

>> Tombo, you and the other fine people here are undoubtedly ethical
>> publishers. But that doesn't mean there aren't others out there
>> using a spurious email publication as a means of harvesting
>> addresses.

Tombo wrote in response:

> We don't publish our readers' email addresses so there is no way
> anyone will harvest addresses from our publications.

I meant that people may be worried that the publisher will use their address
to spam them or that the publisher will sell their address to spammers.

I guess the point is that even if you/we think people are acting
irrationally if they use free email addresses, that doesn't change the fact
that they do, and we as publishers have to deal with it.

I also wrote:

>>  I'm curious as to why you think this. There are numerous
>> legitimate reasons why people use free email accounts. Why does
>> this disqualify any of them from being serious about receiving
>> ezines?

To which John replied:

> Experience!!! The vast majority of people who use Yahoo or
> Hotmail or TheMail accounts use them for one of two reasons:
>
> 1. They set up an autoresponder to send you their ad every time
> they get your ezine. That gets you unsubscribed from my list
> immediately.
>
> 2. They use the address as a dump account and never even open the
> message. They subscribed to get a free ad or some other freebie
> and could care less about the content.

My experience is the opposite. I ran lists with at least 20,000 of the
subscribers using free email addresses. Less than 0.5% of those were using
autoresponders at all (and most of those were not ads). And having
interacted with readers on- and offline I had no evidence to suggest that
free email subscribers were reading the newsletters any less than the ones
with for-fee email accounts.

In my experience (and it's just my experience, nothing more), you can add
more reasons why people might sign-up using a free email address:

3. They access the Internet only through public terminals (school, college,
library, work)

4. They travel a lot or access the Internet from several different computers

5. It guarantees anonymity if, for example, your "real" email address
identifies your location or workplace or name

6. They simply prefer their free email address: jediknight@starwarsfan.com
is "better" than jsmith@aol.com

I could go on.

I'm not disputing your experience John, just pointing out that it won't be
the same for everyone.

John also responded to my comment about address harvesting and spurious
publications:

> Web sites and classified ad sites are much better sources of
> addresses for harvesters. Does that mean we should get rid of our
> web sites and/orstop using classified sites??? don't do business
> based on fear.

Yes, but whether justified or not, the fear is there. Many people, for
whatever rational or irrational reason, are reluctant to give out their
"proper" email address for subscriptions etc. And it makes sound business
sense to account for that fear, for example by reassuring people with a
privacy policy.

Mark Brownlow
Web publisher and writer
http://www.KeepingtheKey.com/
Turning ezine subscribers into enthusiasts




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