chopra file

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INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES

GHAZIABAD

A PROJECT REPORT ON

EMAIL MARKETING BY MUTHOOT FINANCE

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Prof. Soumen Mukherjee Team Nandan Nilekani

IMS Ghaziabad Pgdm ( 1st year)

Sec- E

IMSGhaziabad


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Email Marketing by MuthootFinancle

Prepared by

SubodhikaMalhotra (BM011220)

..

Subratrastogi (BM011221)..

Sudanshusingh (BM011223)

Sunil kumar (BM011224)

Surbhisharma (BM011225)

Sushantsrivastav (BM011226)

Swati bansal (BM011227)

..


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Viveksharma (BM011251)

Vishal Pandey (BM0112 )

.

Prepared for

Prof. Soumen Mukherjee

Faculty IMS Ghaziabad

Signature.

DECLARATION

We hereby declare that the report entitled Email Marketing By

Muthoot Financesubmitted is our own work and to the best of our

knowledge & belief, it contains no material previously published or


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written by another person and the data which is provided is authentic

and to the best of way of my knowledge.

Date

.


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would sincerely like to thank our project guide Prof. Soumen Mukherjee

, for enabling us to successfully carry out the project work through his constant guidance,

endless support and continuous involvement in the project.

It was really worthwhile to receive help fromMr., who in person was always present to

help us out anytime we felt his need. Without his constant support this project would not

have been acknowledged as it is now.

Finally, we owe a great deal of sincere thanks to the faculty members who have been of

great support from time to time along with our friends, who kept encouraging us all

along.


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Email marketing

Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people

using electronic mail email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or

current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email

to send ads, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and any email

communication that is meant to build loyalty, trust or brand awareness. Email

marketing can be done to either cold lists or current customer database. Broadly, the

term is usually used to refer to:

sending email messages with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a

merchant with its current or previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and

repeat business,

sending email messages with the purpose of acquiring new customers or

convincing current customers to purchase something immediately,

addingadvertisements to email messages sent by other companies to their

customers.

Types of Email Marketing

Email marketing can be carried out through different types of emails;

Email Newsletters
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Email Newsletters are direct emails sent out on a regular basis to a list of subscribers,

customers. The primary purpose of an email newsletter is to build upon the

relationship of the company with their customers/subscribers.

Transactional Emails

Transactional emails are usually triggered based on a customers action with a

company. Triggered transactional messages include dropped basket messages,

purchase or order confirmation emails and email receipts.

The primary purpose of a transactional email is to convey information regarding the

action that triggered it. But, due to its high open rates (51.3% compared to 36.6% for

email newsletters), transactional emails are a golden opportunity to engage customers;

to introduce or extend the email relationship with customers or subscribers, to

anticipate and answer questions or to cross-sell or up-sell products or services.

Many email newsletter software vendors offer transactional email support, which

gives companies the ability to include promotional messages within the body oftransactional emails. There are also software vendors that offer specialized

transactional email marketing services, which include providing targeted and

personalized transactional email messages and running specific marketing campaigns

(such as customer referral programs).

Direct emails

Direct email involves sending an email solely to communicate a promotional message

(for example, an announcement of a special offer or a catalog of products). Companies

usually collect a list of customer or prospect email addresses to send direct
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promotional messages to, or they can also rent a list of email addresses from service

companies.

Comparison to traditional mail

There are both advantages and disadvantages to using email marketing in comparison

to traditional advertising mail.

Advantages

Email marketing (on the Internet) is popular with companies for several reasons:

An exact return on investment can be tracked ("track to basket") and has proven to

be high when done properly. Email marketing is often reported as second only to

search marketing as the most effective online marketing tactic.

Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of email subscribers who have opted in

(i.e. consented) to receive email communications on subjects of interest to them.

Almost half of American Internet users check or send email on a typical day, with

email blasts that are delivered between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. outperforming those sent at

other times in open and click rates.

Email is popular with digital marketers.

Disadvantages

A report issued by the email services company Return Path, as of mid-2008 email

deliverability is still an issue for legitimate marketers. According to the report,

legitimate email servers averaged a delivery rate of 56%; twenty percent of the

messages were rejected, and eight percent were filtered.
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Direct Marketing

Definition:

Direct marketingis a communication where data are used systematically to achieve

quantifiable marketing objective, and where direct content is invited or made

between a company and its customers.

Direct marketingis an interactive system of marketing which uses one or more

advertizing media to affect a measurable response and transaction at any location.

Direct marketingis the process by which a firm approaches the customers on basis

of one to one.

Uses

Invite current customers and top prospects to an event youre holding at a trade

show.

Send product literature with the prospects name and custom specifications printed

into the brochure itself (via digital printing).

Announce a compelling sale.

Direct mail can be an efficient vehicle for your company if you focus on strategic.

Focus on the offer itself the purpose for the mailing, the call-to-action. For

example, if youre promoting a software demo.

Target your audience, by doing telephonic advertisements.


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Scope of Direct Marketing:

Direct marketing offers you the ability to send a personalized, customized

communication out to targeted potential buyers. Well thought out direct mail

campaigns offer better value for your marketing dollars, as they are more cost-

effective than mass advertising, are highly measurable and financially accountable.

Direct marketing also allows for infinite testing and improvement.

Today there are a variety of direct mail tools to help you manage your direct mail

marketing campaigns, as well as monthly invoices and statements and other

transaction-based mailings. Many markets today are bringing their direct campaigns

in-house as it allows them control over:

Client and potential client target lists

The ability to upgrade the mail center with a range of mailing systems and

software Cost-efficiently outfitting a complete in-house solution.

Types of Direct Marketing:

Manufacturer to Consumer

In this channel there is no intermediary. Manufacturer makes the goods and directly

distributes to consumers.

Manufacturer to Retailer to Consumer


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Retailer is the intermediary between manufacturer and consumer. He purchases goods

from manufacturer and sells to consumer.

Manufacturer to Wholesaler to Retailer to Consumer

In this channel, there are two option, one is wholesaler and other is retailer.

Wholesaler buys large scale and sells to retailer and the retailer sells to consumer.

Manufacturer to Wholesaler to Consumer

Consumer can buy easily and directly from wholesaler. So, in this channel there is

only one intermediary and he is wholesaler.

Manufacturer to agent to wholesaler to retailer to consumer

Advantages of Direct Marketing:

Focus approach: It is possible to identify specific market using direct marketing

techniques. This makes it a very useful promotional tool for niche products.

Cost effective: Although for large scale brings high in prices,thus useful for niche

product.

Immediate and flexible: Direct marketing and there are short lead of times

associated with use because of which it often had an immediate responses.

Tailored messages: Direct marketing also offer great opportunities for developing

tailor-made messages for particular groups of customers.


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Easy international reach: It is relatively easy to adapt a direct marketing campaign

to an international target market.

Rapid delivery: Direct marketing is both swit and flexible in achieving results. This

is especially true for telemarketing, one of the direct marketing tools.

Multiple uses: Direct marketing doesnt just have to sell-it can be use to test

markets and new trial products or customers, to reward existing customers to build

loyalty, collect information for future.

Ease of management: Provide greater control and accountability than other

marketing methods. Its easy to measure result because you know how many people

respond you.

Testing Capability: Test again and again in order to hit upon the most successful

combination of direct marketing tools.

Relationship Building: Direct marketing is far more effective at initiating and

developing meaningful words with customers.

Disadvantages of direct marketing

May be seen as competing with existing intermediaries: May upset marketing

intermediaries as sales through direct marketing may be taking sales away from

them.

May be Seen as Intrusive by Consumers: Problem for door to door and

telemarketing.


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Costs:Initial customers acquisition costs high and database development can be

expensive.

Fraud: There is also the concern that personal information collected by legitimates

direct marketing agencies could be purchased by unscrupulous or shady companies

for the purpose of fraudness.

Lack of awareness: Many people unaware of how the personal information they

include on an order form.

Cost: Cost higher compare to mass promotion.

Waste: Large quantities of paper are thrown away direct marketing.

Privacy concerns: Direct marketing firms should offer methods by which

individuals can opt-out of this list. Its agencies must respect the do-not-call list

maintain by government agencies.

Role of direct marketing:

The direct marketing methods of old were mostly comprised of radio, TV and print

media advertising, as before the digital age, this was as close as businesses could

get to their customers without going door-to-door.

With the digital ads, they are easily aimed at the intended market segment, meaning

that its easy to gauge the effectiveness of the effectiveness of the advertising

campaign.

The traditional ways of advertising are very expensive and hardly offer the return-

on-investment (ROI) as other less-expensive.


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The Internet has become the primary platform being used to directly connect with

the purchasing public. Digital marketing has various advantages to the advertisers of

goods and services. The traditional forms of advertising have lost their effectiveness

as they now, often, miss their target market.

The most important aspect of any marketing strategy is the feedback that you get

from the market.

The marketers to lay new strategies in order to increase their business and the

effectiveness of their marketing campaigns.

Electronic Mail Messages

Electronic mail, commonly known as email ore-mail, is a method of exchanging

digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates

across the Internet or othercomputer networks. Some early email systems required

that the author and the recipient both be online at the same time, in common with

instant messaging. Today's email systems are based on a store-and-forward model.

Email servers accept, forward, deliver and store messages. Neither the users nor their

computers are required to be online simultaneously; they need connect only briefly,

typically to an email server, for as long as it takes to send or receive messages. The

messages can be notes entered from the keyboard or electronic filesstored on disk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_networkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_and_offlinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_messaginghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Store-and-forwardhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_serverhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_serverhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/K/keyboard.htmlhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/F/file.htmlhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/store.htmlhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/D/disk.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_networkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_and_offlinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_messaginghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Store-and-forwardhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_serverhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_serverhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/K/keyboard.htmlhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/F/file.htmlhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/store.htmlhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/D/disk.html


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Most mainframes, minicomputers, and computernetworks have an e-mail system.

Some electronic-mail systems are confined to a single computer system or network,

but others have gateways to other computer systems, enabling users to send electronic

mail anywhere in the world. Companies that are fully computerized make extensive

use of e-mail because it is fast, flexible, and reliable.

People use it for personal communication between family members on different sides

of the coast, for business communication, or for a variety of reasons and purposes. But

it's really for communicating in a digital format, communicating electronically. What

used to be the process of typewriter, typing a letter out, sending it and putting a stamp

on it, has basically moved over to electronic format, and that's represented in the e-

mail system that we have today. We have it in various forms, from very sophisticated

applications like Microsoft Outlook, to AOL, Yahoo!, Google mail, and so forth.

An email message consists of three components, the message envelope, the message

header, and the message body. The message header contains control information,

including, minimally, an originator's email address and one or more recipient

addresses. Usually descriptive information is also added, such as a subject header field

and a message submission date/time stamp.

What is the purpose of e-mail?

The purpose of e-mail is to communicate information. It's not to have a conversation

as a conversation is best face to face or on the phone when you're synchronous. E-mail

is asynchronous. It's passing a message to someone to do something, request

something, delivering something, asking them to send something back to someone

else. E-mail is best used for communicating something in a very concise and clear

manner. But we've moved conversation into that and it's caused e-mails to be
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confusing, misleading, vague, too long, too short, and often e-mails confuse the

receiver with what they should do.

What role does e-mail play in business today?

Too often people think about e-mail as the work for the day, but e-mail is really just a

communication vehicle. If, at the end of the day, the goal was to complete a project to

ship out a new software package, that's the goal. E-mail is just a vehicle that you use

to communicate the tasks in order to ship that out. So, keep this in mind, as at the end

of the day, your business is really about shipping the product, making market share,

producing something, it's not how many e-mails you've answered, and that's the role

of e-mail in today's business.

Importance of Email

E-mail is free, fast and proactive!

Sending effective e-mails on a regular basis will help increase your registration

numbers, drive traffic to your website, and build loyalty with your participants. Heres

how:

E-mail is free. With no production, materials or postage expenses, you can easily

and affordably communicate event information.

E-mail is fast. Time-sensitive information including updates pertaining to events

and breaking news can be received within minutes, not days or weeks.


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E-mail generates an immediate response. By providing links within your e-mail,

you give potential participants the opportunity to register right then and there. You

can see the results of your efforts instantly.

E-mail is targeted. You can easily segment your lists into groups so your e-mails

go to the individuals who are most likely to respond to that particular message.

E-mail is proactive. Instead of passively waiting for participants to visit your Web

site, e-mail enables you to aggressively communicate with and educate your existing

participants.

E-mail expands your reach. Grow your database by sending information to your

participants and encourage them to forward the message onto their own friends and

family.

E-mail allows you to foster long lasting relationships. Build a regular, ongoing

dialogue with those registrants/participants who appreciate the routine

communication. Those who do not can easily opt-out.

E-mail will grow your organization. Maintaining and growing your e-mail database

will allow you to fully utilize our services, including free broadcast e-mails.

Email - blessing or curse?

Knowing the advantages and disadvantages of email will help you analyse the time

you spend using it.

Advantages of Email

1. Cheap. Once youre online, there is no further expense.


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2. Easy to reference. Sent and received messages and attachments can be stored

safely, logically and reliably.

3. Easy to use. Once youre set up, sending and receiving messages is simple. That

goes for a host of other email functions. Data storage and contacts can be accessed

quickly and easily.

4. Easy to prioritize. Incoming messages have subject lines that mean you can delete

without opening. How much time does that save compared to snail mail?

5. Fast. Message to send? Done, under a second! Email is by far the fastest form of

written communication.

6. Global. Web based email means you can access your messages anywhere online.

Going oversees? Before you go, mail yourself a copy of your passport number,

travel insurance details or your accommodation details.

7. Good for the planet. Actually the advantages anddisadvantages of email are clear

here. Computers themselves arent 'green', but email offsets some of the damage by

reducing the environmental cost of contact.

8. Info at your fingertips. Storing data online means less large, space taking file

cabinets, folders and shelves. You can access information far quicker if you learn

how to use email this way.

9. Leverage. Send the same message to any number of people. Adaptations are

simple, too. If you have a product or service to sell, email is an effective medium to

get your message out.

Disadvantages of Email

1. Emotional responses. Some emails cause upset or anger. A reply in the heat of the

moment cant be retracted.


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2. Information overload. Too many people send too much information. They often

cite need to know as the justification. Learn how to use email effectively and

youll reduce time wasted on this.

3. Lacks the personal touch. Some things are best left untyped. Email will never

beat a hand written card or letter when it comes to relationships.

4. Misunderstandings. Emails from people who dont take the time to read what

they write before clicking send. Time is wasted, either to clarify or, worse, acting

on a misinterpretation of the message.

5. No respite. The law of the empty inbox leaves it and will grow. Ignore it at your

peril! Discoverhow to get an empty inbox every day.

6. Pressure to reply. Once its in your inbox, you feel an ever increasing obligation

to act on it. Procrastinating doesnt making it go away.

7. Spam. Having to deal with spam and spoofs is one of the worst avoidable time

wasters online.

8. Sucks up your time. Over checking messages is time wasted on low value,

passive activity.

9. Too long. How long is too long? Its hard to say exactly, but the longer it goes on,

the harder it is to take in. Email is suited to brevity.

Why do you need email etiquette?

A company needs to implement etiquette rules for the following three reasons:

Professionalism: by using proper email language your company will convey a

professional image.

Efficiency: emails that get to the point are much more effective than poorly

worded emails.
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Protection from liability: employee awareness of email risks will protect your

company from costly law suits.

What are the etiquette rules?

There are many etiquette guides and many different etiquette rules. Some rules will

differ according to the nature of your business and the corporate culture. Below we list

what we consider as the 32 most important email etiquette rules that apply to nearly

all companies.

32 most important email etiquette tips:

1. Be concise and to the point

2. Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions

3. Use proper spelling, grammar & punctuation

4. Make it personal

5. Use templates for frequently used responses

6. Answer swiftly

7. Do not attach unnecessary files

8. Use proper structure & layout

9. Do not overuse the high priority option

10. Do not write in CAPITALS

11. Don't leave out the message thread

12. Add disclaimers to your emails

13. Read the email before you send it

14. Do not overuse Reply to All

15. Mailings > use the bcc: field or do a mail merge

16. Take care with abbreviations and emoticons
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17. Be careful with formatting

18. Take care with rich text and HTML messages

19. Do not forward chain letters

20. Do not request delivery and read receipts

21. Do not ask to recall a message.

22. Do not copy a message or attachment without permission

23. Do not use email to discuss confidential information

24. Use a meaningful subject

25. Use active instead of passive

26. Avoid using URGENT and IMPORTANT

27. Avoid long sentences

28. Don't send or forward emails containing libelous, defamatory, offensive, racist or

obscene remarks

29. Don't forward virus hoaxes and chain letters

30. Keep your language gender neutral

31. Don't reply to spam

32. Use cc: field sparingly

How do you enforce email etiquette?

The first step is to create a written email policy. This email policy should include allthe do's and don'ts concerning the use of the company's email system and should be

distributed amongst all employees. Secondly, employees must be trained to fully

understand the importance of email etiquette. Finally, implementation of the rules can

be monitored by using email management software and email response tools.
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How much does e-mail cost?

The cost of e-mail for most people appears to be zero, but there is a cost that's hidden.

I find that the hidden cost is that it takes me time to read a message, and it takes timeto type a message. And so, when you actually look at the volume that's increased

today, you can look at someone's salary and equate the amount of time they spend in

e-mail. This can be up to two and a half, three hours a day, so look at that cost in

terms of how much you're paying that person at a corporation to do e-mail. And a lot

of e-mail is unnecessary, so there is a wasted cost to e-mail.

Rights of Consumers and Consumer privacy (customer privacy)

Consumer privacy, also known as Customer privacy, involves the handling and

protection of sensitive personal information that individuals provide in the course of

everyday transactions. This involves the exchange or use of data electronically (e-

mail) or by any other means, including telephone, fax, writtencorrespondence.

With the advent and evolution of the World Wide Web and other electronic methods

of mass communications, consumer privacy has become a major issue. Personal


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information, when misused or inadequately protected, can result in identity theft,

financial fraud, and other problems that collectively cost people per year. In addition,

Internet crimes and civil disputes consume court resources, confound legislators and

police departments, and produce untold personal aggravation.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) sponsors the Platform for Privacy

Preferences Project (P3P), which provides an automated method for Internet users to

divulge personal information to Web sites with which they explicitly agree to share it.

A P3P-compliant Web site posts a Statement of Privacy Policy that explicitly defines

what will be done with information provided by the user. The policy statement is

easily found, read, understood, and acted upon. Each user can create a unique personal

profile if desired, and modify or delete the profile at will.

Other consumer privacy features commonly offered by corporations and government

agencies include do not call lists; verification of transactions by e-mail or telephone;

non-repudiation technologies for e-mail; passwords and other authorization measures;

encryption and decryption of electronically transmitted data; opt-out provisions in

user agreements for bank accounts, utilities, credit cards, and similar services; digital

signatures; and biometric identification technology.

Consumer privacy laws and regulations seek to protect any individual from loss of

privacy due to failures or limitations of corporate customer privacy measures. They

recognize that the damage done by privacy loss is typically not measurable, nor can it

be undone, and that commercial organizations have little or no interest in taking

unprofitable measures to drastically increase privacy of customers - indeed, their

motivation is very often quite the opposite, to share data for commercial advantage,

and to fail to officially recognize it as sensitive, so as to avoid legal liability for lapses

of security that may occur.


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Consumer privacy concerns date back to the first commercial couriers and bankers,

who in every culture took strong measures to protect customer privacy, but also in

every culture tended to be subject to very harsh punitive measures for failures to keep

a customer's information private. The Hippocratic Oath includes a requirement for

doctors to avoid mentioning ills of patients to others, not only to protect them, but to

protect their families - the same basic idea as modern consumer privacy law and

regulation, which recognizes that innocent third parties can be harmed by the loss of

control of sensitive information, and that therefore there is a responsibility beyond that

to the 'customer' or 'client'. Today the ethical codes of most professions very clearly

specify privacy measures beyond that for the 'consumer' of an arbitrary service. Those

measures are discussed in other articles on medical privacy, client confidentiality and

national security - and to a degree in carceral state (where no privacy in any form nor

limits on state oversight or data use exist

Your emails contain a treasure trove of personal information about you. Under the

Data Protection Act 1998, anyone collecting this data is required to tell you how it

will be used and to use it only for that purpose.

If you know an organisation holds personal data about you, you can require they

reveal what information they have - although they may charge you a fee to do this. If

the organisation fails to comply, you can report them to the Information

Commissioner.

Note also that under section 11 of the Data Protection Act, you can require anyone

possessing your personal data to stop using it. If the person fails to comply, you can

complain to the Information Commissioner and/or apply for a court order.


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What about organisations that keep sending me unwanted marketing

emails?

The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 prohibits organisationssending you marketing messages without first obtaining your express consent unless:

they obtained your details through the "sale or negotiations for the sale" of a product

or service; the messages relate to similar products or services offered by the sender.

You had a simple chance to refuse to the use of your personal data at the time it was

collected and, if you did not refuse, you have a simple way to opt out in every

subsequent communication.

Email security

The Data Protection Act also stipulates that organisations should handle customers'

personal data with appropriate care. This is especially important in financial services,

law and healthcare. Businesses and public bodies in these and other fields should not

transmit sensitive data via unsecured and unencrypted emails. This is because it is

comparatively easy to read and/or modify such emails while they're in transit.

Moreover, since it's relatively easy to intercept email in transit, criminals can access

and then exploit sensitive personal and financial data.

Getting professional help


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There are many solicitors and other professionals who can help you with email

privacy issues. One way to find a quality-assured solicitor who can best meet your

needs without spending hours researching is to use a free solicitor matching service,


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What Is Spam?

Receiving spam is a common complaint of many Internet users. In fact, spam email

has become an increasingly bothersome problem as individuals spreading spam email

find easier ways to invade users email accounts, leading to the necessity of such tools

as spam filters and spam blockerfeatures.

Email spam, also known asjunk email orunsolicited bulk email (UBE), is a subset

of electronic spam involving nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients

by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and

sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE(unsolicited commercial email). The opposite

of "spam", email which one wants, is called "ham", usually when referring to a

message's automated analysis (such as Bayesian filtering).

The term spam refers to submitting the same message to a large group of individuals

in an effort to force the message onto people who would otherwise choose not to

receive this message.

There are two types of spam:

Cancelable usenet spam refers to spam email in which a single message is sent to

2 or more usenet groups. This type of spam is directed at lurkers, or individuals who

read newsgroups but who either do not or infrequently post or give their email

addresses away. Cancelable usenet spam reduces the utility of newsgroups by forcing

through advertising, and as such decreases the ability of administrators and managers
http://www.spamlaws.com/spam-filters.htmlhttp://www.spamlaws.com/spam-blocker.htmlhttp://www.spamlaws.com/spam-filters.htmlhttp://www.spamlaws.com/spam-blocker.html


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of newsgroups to manage accepted topics. This spam is run at a low cost to those

sending out spam.

Email spam refers to spam email that is directed at individual users with direct

addresses; email spam lists are usually created by scanning usenet postings, sterling

Internet mailing lists or searching the Web for addresses. A variant of this form of

spam is sent directly to mailing lists and email discussions that are used by public and

private forums. Email spam costs individuals submitting spam email money; for

example, ISPs and online services need to pay to transmit spam directly to

subscribers.

In addition, there are three main components to all types of spam:

anonymity: the senders identity and address are concealed

mass mailing: spam email is sent to a large number of recipients and in high

quantities

unsolicited: the individuals receiving spam would otherwise not have opted to

receive it

Common forms of spam include commercial advertising, usually for dubious

products, such as get-rich-quick schemes, quasi-legal services, political messages,

chain letters and fake spam used to spread viruses.

How common is Spam?

Spam is very common, with most if not all individuals receiving spam email at some

point in their Internet-using lives.


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However, the effectiveness of spam is not comparable. Only 14% of people read the

spam they receive, with a mere 4% of individuals buying products from spam

messages.

Spam Problem Explained

Spam is junk commercial email. We suffer from spam because, for the sender, it

produces large profits if sent in sufficient quantity. And because it is profitable -- yes,

people do buy things in response to spam -- it is very hard to stop. Spammers are

resourceful people with no moral scruples or sense of responsibility, but they're not

dumb.

In spite of anti-spam laws proposed and on the books, spam doesn't stop. It just

moves. Today most of the spam is being generated and consumed within the USA.

But tomorrow, in a flash, it could just as well come from China or North Korea or

Somalia. The internet is an international phenomenon and no international law isuniversally enforced. So you can expect spam to be around for quite a long time.

Anti-Spam Methods

If you are annoyed by spam in your email, as most of us are, there are many ways to

reduce it. Each method has its benefits and disadvantages. Here's a quick summary of

the methods in use today.

Filters - Filter software attempts to block spam by having a program read and

interpret (censor) the email. Most of the modern filters use a method of learning from


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the user what he considers spam and what is not. This can produce good but not

perfect results, so filters occasionally miss a spam or block a legitimate email. The

advantage of the filter is that it seems quite automatic. Disadvantages of filter method

are that it can take a significant amount of time to analyze the mail and it isn't 100%

accurate.

Blacklists - The idea behind a blacklist is to catalog the spammers' addresses and

block all mail from those addresses. This is, obviously, an enormous task, since

spammers frequently change addresses or even send their spam from addresses they

don't own. So blacklists are hazardous and always one step behind the spammers. But

they're OK if you trust the compiler of the list and he keeps it current.

Trusted Senders- Some vendors have tried to build systems based on trusted senders,

the idea being that someone certifies the sender as a legitimate email source. It is a

monumental task. This hasn't proven very popular or workable because most people

don't want to leave this judgment in the hands of a stranger or a large institution that

maintains lists of "approved" email addresses.

Whitelist - The whitelist is a list of addresses from which you are willing to receive

mail. Some vendors call it a "friends" list. Your address book is a good source to start

building a whitelist and a good whitelist based program will automatically add to your

whitelist any address you send mail to. The weakness of the whitelist is that it doesn't

know the addresses of legitimate strangers, such as merchants, who send you mail.

Previews- As an aid to the whitelist or sometimes in lieu of it, some anti-spam

programs provide a Preview mode that lets you see and manage mail while it is still

on the mail server. This prevents spam-borne viruses, spyware, worms, Trojans and


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other malware from ever arriving into your inbox. The disadvantage of this is that it

takes manual effort to manage.

Challenge/Response- Since most spam is sent by robots and/or from invalid

addresses an anti-spam program that sends a "challenge" message to an unknown

email sender can block spam. Upon receipt of the challenge the legitimate human

sender will respond via some action that can't be done by a robot, such as typing in a

few numbers or letters. When this response is received, the sender's address and email

message are validated. All challenges not responded to or bounced are presumed to be

spam. The only disadvantage of this is that some email you want is sent by robots --

such as the sales confirmation from a web merchant.

Spam-Free-Channel - This method automatically certifies each email that is sent out,

and then validates that email when it is received. Because the certification method

can't be used for mass-mail (i.e., spam), it actually prevents spam from being sent in

the first place. All email sent and received through the Spam-Free-Channel is

guaranteed not to be mass mail spam. The advantages are simplicity, speed, and 100%

unambiguous spam elimination. It passes good mail, even from strangers and

completely blocks spam at the source. The disadvantage is that not everyone uses it

yet, so for now the software must include support from other anti-spam methods.

There is only one program, however, that provides a Spam-Free-Channel. This

program, Use Best Mail, combines the Whitelist, Preview, and Challenge Response

methods with the Spam-Free-Channel to enable 100% spam prevention immediately.And when a group of people use it, they are provided with the equivalent of a gated,

spam-free community.


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Benefits of Spam

Many of us think that spam is absolutely useless and inefficient as an advertising tool.

How can it be of any use if everyone hates it and never read it? There is a huge varietyof anti-spam programs designed to detect and filter out spam letters before they get

into Inbox and even if spam managed to squeeze through all those filters most of the

people never open it and delete immediately. There is an obvious question then - why

do spammers continue to send those millions of spam letters everyday and how can

they be useful for advertising purposes?

First of all, we have to admit that in the competitive world of business nothing can

survive if it is not efficient and doesn't give enough profit. Therefore, spamming is

definitely a profitable business and apparently quite lucrative. So, why does spam

exist and how can it bring money if no one reads it?

If you think about it more then you will find a lot in common with TV advertisements.

Annoying commercials also do not have many fans and in fact most of the people try

to avoid them. According to opinion polls women are usually turning off the sound

during commercial breaks, while men prefer to change the channel and those who

continue to watch as it is are in minority. And still, companies are spending millions

of dollars on creating and showing commercials on different TV channels. No doubt,

commercials must have such an effect that all the invested money is coming back with

a profit.

The secret is not very obvious but it is repetition. The effect is not even in repetition

itself but in repeating many times, huge number of times. You must notice that

advertising campaigns can last for years when one and the same commercial is

regularly shown everywhere. Years after years, the product is the same and only the


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commercials are slightly changed. Finally, doing your everyday shopping you realize

that among the range of products you in fact prefer one that "you know" and "you

need" meaning the product, which is more often and more actively advertised on TV.

The whole process can be considered as forming a conditional reflex. Organizing such

long-term advertising campaigns companies have to take into account the percentage

of instances when a viewer misses the program, changes the channel, turns off the

sound or switch off the TV. This percentage is huge and in order to get the desired

result commercials must be shown not just very often but infinitely often and

everywhere.

Of course, spamming is different from TV advertising for many reasons. Commercials

are more often supposed to create image of the product, to attract attention of the

viewer to a particular company or brand and not to convince to buy the product "right

now", although you can see such commercials as well. The goal of spam is to make

you to consider its offer immediately so you either order the promoted product/service

or at least visit the promoted web site. However the main idea is the same - there must

be many repetitions and hopefully for the spammer, one day a letter with some

advertisement arrives exactly when the receiver is being interested in something

similar. But before that there must be the "conditional reflex" formed in his/her mind.

This is achieved when the e-mail user pays that little bit of attention to a spam letter

before deleting it from Inbox - having a look at it or at least checking the subject to

make sure the letter is not of value . Having got many similar letters the receiver

already has some idea about what is being advertised.

To make all this happen not once or twice but regularly, i.e. to guarantee a steady flow

of clients for the advertised company, it is necessary to send spam letters to millions

of people and to keep on sending those letter as often as possible. It would be no

exaggeration to say that the work of a spammer is similar to that of a gold prospector -


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tons of sand is passing through his hands and he only gets some few grams of valuable

gold. In fact, here is the main weakness of the whole idea of spam that has to be

exploited in order to combat spam more effectively. And here you can find some

similarities with cryptography. There is no need to create a code that is impossible to

break; it is enough to create such a code that the expenses spent on breaking it would

be more than the value of the coded information.

The same can be applied to spam. Creating or choosing a spam filter it is not

necessary to try to achieve 100% guarantee of detecting any spam message and in fact

this is simply impossible. It is enough to use a filter that is capable of reducing the

number of spam messages received by e-mail users to such an extent that spamming

advertising campaigns become inefficient and unprofitable. And then, after a while,

spam will become unattractive as an advertising tool and will be used less and less

often.

Why is spam bad?

Q. Why do we get so upset when we receive E-mail which was not requested?

There are several reasons:

1. The free ride. E-mail spam is unique in that the receiver pays so much more for it

than the sender does. For example, AOL has said that they were receiving 1.8

million spams from Cyber Promotions per day until they got a court injunction to

stop it. Assuming that it takes the typical AOL user only 10 seconds to identify and

discard a message, that's still 5,000 hours per day of connect time per day spent

discarding their spam, just on AOL. By contrast, the spammer probably has a T1

line that costs him about $100/day. No other kind of advertising costs the
http://spam.abuse.net/overview/receiver.shtmlhttp://spam.abuse.net/overview/receiver.shtml


35/41

advertiser so little and the recipient so much. The closest analogy I can think of

would be auto-dialing junk phone calls to cellular users (in the US, cell phone

users pay to receive as well as originate calls); you can imagine how favorably that

might be received.

2. The ``oceans of spam'' problem. Many spam messages say ``please send a

REMOVE message to get off our list.'' Even disregarding the question of why you

should have to do anything to get off a list you never asked to join, this becomes

completely impossible if the volume grows. At the moment, most of us only get afew spams per day. But imagine if only 1/10 of 1 % of the users on the Internet

decided to send out spam at a moderate rate of 100,000 per day, a rate easily

achievable with a dial-up account and a PC. Then everyone would be receiving

100 spams every day. If 1% of users were spamming at that rate, we'd all be

getting 1,000 spams per day. Is it reasonable to ask people to send out 100

``remove'' messages per day? Hardly. If spam grows, it will crowd our mailboxes

to the point that they're not useful for real mail. Users on AOL, which has a lot of

trouble with internal spammers, report that they're already nearing this point.

3. The theft of resources. An increasing number of spammers, such as Quantum

Communications, send most or all of their mail via innocent intermediate systems,

to avoid blocks that many systems have placed against mail coming directly from

the spammers' systems. (Due to a historical quirk, most mail systems on the

Internet will deliver mail to anyone, not just their own users.) This fills the

intermediate systems' networks and disks with unwanted spam messages, takes up

their managers' time dealing with all the undeliverable spam messages, and

subjects them to complaints from recipients who conclude that since the

intermediate system delivered the mail, they must be in league with the spammers.


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Many other spammers use ``hit and run'' spamming in which they get a trial dial-up

account at an Internet provider for a few days, send tens of thousands of messages,

then abandon the account (unless the provider notices what they're doing and

cancels it first), leaving the unsuspecting provider to clean up the mess. Many

spammers have done these tens or dozens of times, forcing the providers to waste

staff time both on the cleanup and on monitoring their trial accounts for abuse.

4. It's all garbage. The spam messages I've seen have almost without exception

advertised stuff that's worthless, deceptive, and partly or entirely fraudulent. (I

include the many MLMs in here, even though the MLM rarely understand why

there's no such thing as a good MLM.) Its spam software, funky miracle cures, off-

brand computer parts, vaguely described get rich quick schemes, dial-a-porn, and

so on downhill from there. It's all stuff that's too cruddy to be worth advertising in

any medium where they'd actually have to pay the cost of the ads. Also, since the

cost of spamming is so low, there's no point in targeting your ads, when for the

same low price you can send the ads to everyone, increasing the noise level the rest

of us have to deal with.

5. They're crooks. Spam software invariably comes with a list of names falsely

claimed to be of people who've said they want to receive ads, but actually

consisting of unwilling victims culled at random from usenet or mailing lists. Spam

software often promises to run on a provider's system in a way designed to be hard

for the provider to detect so they can't tell what the spammer is doing. Spams

invariably say they'll remove names on request, but they almost never do. Indeed,

people report that when they send a test ` remove'' request from a newly created

account, they usually start to receive spam at that address.

Spammers know that people don't want to hear from them, and generally put fake

return addresses on their messages so that they don't have to bear the cost of


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receiving responses from people to whom they've send messages. Whenever

possible, they use the ``disposable'' trial ISP accounts mentioned above so the ISP

bears the cost of cleaning up after them. I could go on, but you get the idea. It's

hard to think of another line of business where the general ethical level is so low.

6. It might be illegal. Some kinds of spam are illegal in some countries on the

Internet. Especially with pornography, mere possession of such material can be

enough to put the recipient in jail. In the United States, child pornography is highly

illegal and we've already seen spammed child porn offers.

Spam it not so much harmful as it is an invasion of privacy. A business uses its emailfor contact with the outside world it clients and advisors. When you sit down to check

your email you should not have to sort through a hundred emails offering everything

from penis enlargers to millions of dollars that happen to have found its way into the

hands of the janitor of some government department in Africa. And all they need so

you can have it is your banking details. Spam is a bloody pest and is sent out by scum

bags.

Legal Status of Spam

Spammers collect email addresses from chat rooms, websites, customer lists,

newsgroups, and viruses which harvest users' address books, and are sold to otherspammers. They also use a practice known as "email appending" or "e-pending" in

which they use known information about their target (such as a postal address) to

search for the target's email address. Much of spam is sent to invalid email addresses.

Spam averages 78% of all email sent. According to the Message Anti-Abuse Working


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Group, the amount of spam email was between 8892% of email messages sent in the

first half of 2010.

Sending spam violates the Acceptable use policy (AUP) of almost all Internet service

providers. Providers vary in their willingness or ability to enforce their AUP. Some

actively enforce their terms and terminate spammers' accounts without warning. Some

ISPs lack adequate personnel or technical skills for enforcement, while others may be

reluctant to enforce restrictive terms against profitable customers.

As the recipient directly bears the cost of delivery, storage, and processing, one could

regard spam as the electronic equivalent of "postage-due" junk mail. Due to the lowcost of sending unsolicited email and the potential profit entailed, some believe that

only strict legal enforcement can stop junk email. The Coalition against Unsolicited

Commercial Email (CAUCE) argues "Today, much of the spam volume is sent by

career criminals and malicious hackers who won't stop until they're all rounded up and

put in jail."

Deception and fraud

Spammers may engage in deliberate fraud to send out their messages. Spammers often

use false names, addresses, phone numbers, and other contact information to set up

"disposable" accounts at various Internet service providers. They also often use

falsified or stolen credit card numbers to pay for these accounts. This allows them to

move quickly from one account to the next as the host ISPs discover and shut down

each one.


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Senders may go to great lengths to conceal the origin of their messages. Large

companies may hire another firm to send their messages so that complaints or

blocking of email falls on a third party. Others engage in spoofingof email addresses

(much easier than IP address spoofing). The email protocol (SMTP) has no

authentication by default, so the spammer can pretend to originate a message

apparently from any email address. To prevent this, some ISPs and domains require

the use of SMTP-AUTH, allowing positive identification of the specific account from

which an email originates.

Senders cannot completely spoof email delivery chains (the 'Received' header), since

the receiving mail server records the actual connection from the last mail server's IP

address. To counter this, some spammers forge additional delivery headers to make it

appear as if the email had previously traversed many legitimate servers.

Spoofing can have serious consequences for legitimate email users. Not only can their

email inboxes get clogged up with "undeliverable" emails in addition to volumes of

spam, they can mistakenly be identified as a spammer. Not only may they receive

irate email from spam victims, but (if spam victims report the email address owner to

the ISP, for example) a naive ISP may terminate their service for spamming.

Theft of service

Spammers frequently seek out and make use of vulnerable third-party systems such

as open mail relays and open proxy servers. SMTP forwards mail from one server to

anothermail servers that ISPs run commonly require some form of authentication to

ensure that the user is a customer of that ISP. Open relays, however, do not properly

check who is using the mail server and pass all mail to the destination address, making

it harder to track down spammers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoofing_attackhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoofing_attack


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Legal requirements

In 2002 the European Union introduced the Directive on Privacy and Electronic

Communications. Article 13 of the Directive prohibits the use of email addresses for

marketing purposes. The Directive establishes the opt-in regime, where unsolicited

emails may be sent only with prior agreement of the recipient.

The directive has since been incorporated into the laws of member states. In the UK it

is covered under the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive)

Regulations 2003[13] and applies to all organizations that send out marketing by some

form of electronic communication.

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 authorizes a US $16,000 penalty per violation for

spamming each individual recipient. Therefore, many commercial email marketers

within the United States utilize a service or special software to ensure compliance

with the Act. A variety of older systems exist that do not ensure compliance with the

Act. To comply with the Act's regulation of commercial email, services typically

require users to authenticate their return address and include a valid physical address,provide a one-click unsubscribe feature, and prohibit importing lists of purchased

addresses that may not have given valid permission.

In addition to satisfying legal requirements, email service providers (ESPs) began to

help customers establish and manage their own email marketing campaigns. The

service providers supply email templates and general best practices, as well as

methods for handling subscriptions and cancellations automatically. Some ESPs willprovide insight/assistance with deliverability issues for major email providers. They

also provide statistics pertaining to the number of messages received and opened, and

whether the recipients clicked on any links within the messages.


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The CAN-SPAM Act was updated with some new regulations including a no fee

provision for opting out, further definition of "sender", post office or private mail

boxes count as a "valid physical postal address".

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