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As one who is on the receiving end of these e-mails, this is far more than a game to me.

Yes, I followed the links, and understand some of the issues you guys may have to deal with, but noticably absent is any reference to the article originally posted. Is it totally irrelvant or is the analysis contained therein just wrong?

You may not be the worst offender, but I'm sorry to tell you that most of us consider what you're sending to be spam the second we decide we don't want it anymore. The text of the posted e-mail quite specifically addresses this condition, and the inability or unwillingness of some in your industry to apparently want to deal with that.

For the third time, the central issue in this posted e-mail addresses:

"If one consumer tells one affiliate or merchant that they never want to hear about a particular product (brand) EVER again, then EVERY affiliate AND the merchant must remove that consumer from their list whenever advertising that product.

The question on your mind should be "How in the #$%^ would that work? "

I would love to understand how I'm misreading this, but it seems pretty clear to me. As a consumer, and one who is charged with maximizing organizations' investment in providing e-mail to employees, the analysis seems to be a reasonable expectation for behavior in your industry. If a consumer no longer wants to receive info regarding a product or from a specific company, than all those with affiliate relationships with that product or that company should honor their request.

The reaction following it makes your industry look either arrogent or incompetent. I suspect that if sending an e-mail incurred a significant cost to the sender, the industry would be bending over backwards to put these exact solutions in place.

It might surprise you to know that the industry for which I currently work is directly affected by this and other anti-spam legislation. I can't speak for everyone in the industry, but by and large, we want to only reach consumers who want to be reached, and any mechanisms that will honor consumer requests or improve their perception are very welcome. Yes, it doesn't cost anymore (right now) to send e-mail to consumers who don't want it, but at least in my industry, that only alienates and infuriates potential customers. We are already implementing solutions to address this - we aren't waiting for the legislation to pass.

While I'm not normally fond of legislation as a solution, in this case it does level the playing field by forcing everyone to incur the same costs to adopt the solution. If consumers benefit, as I believe they will, then in the long run so will legitimate businesses.