Fresh out of its first official meeting, the Internet Direct Marketing Bureau (IDMB) has slammed spam and endorsed opt-in as the best practice for email marketing. The opt-in model requires that internet users actually request marketing information be sent to them via email, rather than having to ask to be taken off mass emailing lists. The IDMB called for all email marketers and industry groups to sign its best-practices guidelines, which are to be posted on a web site at http://www.idmb.org/. The group reasons that if the industry does not police itself, someone else will. If our industry fails to voluntarily adopt these practices, we risk over-regulation by the government, explained Paul Grand, CEO of Word of Net and head of the IMDB’s steering committee. Other charter members of the IDMB include Junkbusters, InterActive Agency, Flycast Communications and DoubleClick Network. á
