Email via website, spam?

wolfman

Ok, just wondering what a few others think (in case I'm wrong!).

My company want to start adding "send to a friend", "recommend a friend" sort of functionality. I've been arguing the methods of delivery though.

1) Fill out the form. The web app sends an email from my companies server, addressed from my company. I'd consider this spam as the recipient didn't authorise getting sent such an email. Basically like getting sent junk mail in the post.

2) Fill out the form. The web app sends an email from my companies server, addressed with the email of the person filling out the form. Often identified as spam as the email will be from the domain of my company, but is addressed from a different domain (reverse dns).

3) Mail to link. This is the only way I can think of properly sending an email without it being considered spam. The only downside is that it's not very usable.

1) and 2) and potentially open to abuse too which is a downside to both of them.

Which would you pick and why?

everythingblogcast

the best hing to do is to have someone check the refers but it could be costly but its better then someone using it for spam. I will have a little think for you.

R0CKY

wolfman wrote:

Ok, just wondering what a few others think (in case I'm wrong!).

My company want to start adding "send to a friend", "recommend a friend" sort of functionality. I've been arguing the methods of delivery though.

1) Fill out the form. The web app sends an email from my companies server, addressed from my company. I'd consider this spam as the recipient didn't authorise getting sent such an email.

But that is precisely what "Send to a friend"'s purpose is. It's sending information to someone who did not request it - that is its sole purpose in life.

Reading your post it doesn't look like a technical issue of delivery method at all, it is the ethics of the situation that you are struggling over.

If you want a "send to friend" feature then you will by it's vary nature be sending unsolicted mail. You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs.

It is a quite viable feature though and not considered as spam at all - it is one user sending a colleague information. Where it does become spam is when the feature is abused by spammers for sending mass mailings using your server - and to prevent that there are scripts to prevent spam bots from using web forms (Google CAPTCHA).

So to answer your question I would say how other websites run this feature responsibly is the way ahead for you too i.e. choice (1) with suitable anti-spam script in place.

Hope that helps!

wolfman

Yeah we use CAPTCHA here for any forms.

It wasn't a technical issue, all of the options are easily feasible. I was just trying to get opinions on the ethics of each.

My only problem with 1) though is that any one can fill it in. It's certainly something that can be easily abused even with CAPTCHA in place. And it never looks good on a company if it's sending out loads and loads of send to a friend emails that people may not want. We'd basically be setting up a system, but have little control over how it's used. I know that, for example, Intel have (or should have) withdrawn such functionality from their site because of this.

3) is the most ethical solution. In fact there's nothing wrong with it. It however, is the least usable, and relies on the user have a certain setup.

R0CKY

wolfman wrote:

My only problem with 1) though is that any one can fill it in. It's certainly something that can be easily abused even with CAPTCHA in place. And it never looks good on a company if it's sending out loads and loads of send to a friend emails that people may not want. We'd basically be setting up a system, but have little control over how it's used.

Again, you are describing the functionality of a recommend feature, they go hand in hand. If you can't live with that, I am afraid you will have to do without the feature at all.

wolfman wrote:

3) is the most ethical solution. In fact there's nothing wrong with it. It however, is the least usable, and relies on the user have a certain setup.

As you say, many users are not setup to use a mailto link, so you would be adding a feature that only a subset of your visitors could use, never an ideal situation.

TBH, I don't see how (3) is more ethical than (1) - they both send unsolicited e-mail, which seems to be the main issue you are trying to circumvent.

I'm not sure I am helping, but that is the way I see it. All I would add is that "recommend" or "send page" options feature on many many sites, and are built in to any decent portal or CMS out there, really there is no issue with using a spam protected one.

wolfman

R0CKY wrote:

TBH, I don't see how (3) is more ethical than (1) - they both send unsolicited e-mail, which seems to be the main issue you are trying to circumvent.

(3) is no different from a personal email. In fact it is a personal email. And if it is abused, it's at least not directly associated with our company, nor does it come from our servers. (1) is an automated email from our servers, promoting our company.

I'm taking the kind of, like take for example Microsoft. If they had such a feature (which I don't think they do), how many "recommend" emails would be going out from their servers? How many people would report it as spam, delete it etc... Would it begin to get noticed as spam by email filters? or even blacklisted. Would this put the company in good light, effect its reputation etc...

I can see your point. But I'm still not sure. Just because it's used frequently, doesn't mean it's ok. Plus people are starting to look at mail differently with the ongoing, and ever increasing spam problem. None of the options are ideal. I'd personally just scrap the feature I think.

R0CKY

It is extremely annoying to think that spam is now not just an inconvenience (I get 300+spam emails every day), but that it is causing so much work for site admins to try and keep their sites secure from spam attacks, and also making people as yourself think twice about adding a feature for fear of spam reprisals.

wolfman

Yeah. Thanks for helping provoke thought. I've got to report back to someone senior so it helps having good reasons, pros/cons and ideas about each option.

I think we'll either go with (1) (usability and marketing will probably want this) or (3) (some of the tech guys may side with this).