email newsletter is spam?

[khickey]

We're going to be sending an email ad to guests who have stayed with us before, and have given their email addresses out when they stayed with us previously. Is this considered spam? Does anyone have any feedback as to what repeat guests think when you email them for advertising purposes?

[John Glube]

We're going to be sending an email ad to guests who have stayed with us before, and have given their email addresses out when they stayed with us previously. Is this considered spam? Does anyone have any feedback as to what repeat guests think when you email them for advertising purposes?

Kieran,

Before answering your question, when you collected the name and e-mail address of your guest, what did the form state?

Did the form indicate you were going to be using the person's email address to contact the person in the future by way of email and send the person commercial advertising?

Under Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) you need to tell the person at the time you ask for personal information:

* Why you are collecting personal information and for what purpose you intend to use the personal information.

* An individual's personal email address is generally considered personal information.

The general understanding under PIPEDA is you can't use the person's email address to subsequently send him or her commercial email without specific prior consent at the time you collected the email address.

For more information on PIPEDA:

http://www.privcom.gc.ca/information/02_05_d_08_e.asp

(BC has its own version of PIPEDA as well, which came into force on January 1, 2004.)

John Glube
Toronto, Canada

[Duncan Pollock]

Kieran: John Glube advises you correctly and probably won't agree with my suggestion, but you stand a chance of getting around the problem if you simply send a "request letter" to the e-addresses in your database.
Admittedly, it's an example of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, but I'm willing to guess that most people won't get too upset if you say something like the following:
"We're starting a newsletter and like to think that, as one of our guests in the past, you will have no objection to receiving it.
It's going to say this/that/whatever.
If you'd be kind enough to confirm your willingness to let us stay in touch with you this way, we'll be most grateful. All you need to do is click on the YES button below."
Best wishes."
(You'd of course need to incorporate something like the YES button, but it's probably worth a try.)

Duncan

[John Glube]

Kieran,

The concept of a request letter is one of the 'grey areas.' It depends on how you approach it.

If you imply or infer the person has to give consent then it falls on the wrong side.

However, if you write to people in the manner Duncan suggests, although arguably it may be a stretch, since you are endeavouring to follow the spirit of the legislation, my own sense is people would not get upset.

The only suggestions:

* In your email, consider personalizing the approach a bit more. (Aka - ask how their family is - remind them of the specific month when they visited, etc.)

* I would add a sentence indicating how you came to have the person's email address, for the more paranoid among us.

"You may recall when you stayed with us, you gave us your email address.

Well, there have been a lot of changes here at the Inn.

So, we decided to start a newsletter to keep people informed of the 'going's on' and also to let folks know when we are running specials.

As one of our guests ...

* In the letter, I might provide two additional links: (i) to your privacy policy as posted on your web site, (If you don't have one, consider putting one together), and (ii) provide a link to allow the individual to be removed entirely from your data base.

Although PIPEDA is not specific, include your street address, telephone number and email address. (I presume you would do this as a matter of course.)

* You will have to give some thought to your subject line. Do you have a name for your newsletter?

You may want to consider something like:

A request from [insert newsletter name]

Also, the 'from email' line should be something like webmaster@[insert domain].

* One final point, and I hate to be a 'bugaboo,' but do check the accepted use policy for your internet access provider, just to make sure everything is copasetic.

Trusting this helps,

Kind regards,

John

P.S. Duncan, I appreciate you and I differ at times in our views on first contact and yes the hysteria level can be rather high at times.

My concern, like yours is simply for folks who are wanting to 'properly' use the 'Net and don't want or need the hassle of 'tripping' over themselves. Cheers, John

John Glube
Toronto, Canada

[khickey]

John and Duncan,

Thank you very much for your insite and help. Looks like back to the drawing board for me. The email addresses were given to us so that we could email reservation confirmations to our guests. Having read your replies I don't think it would be wise to use them for marketing purposes. What I will do is confirm/ask guests if we can send them information when they give us their email addresses.

Thanks very much for your input, and go Flames.

Kieran

[DarrenC]

What I will do is confirm/ask guests if we can send them information when they give us their email addresses

I think that is the best route to take - but remember to have a sheet where they put the email address with a quick note on it to say what information you could send them.

I suppose it would be a small version of a privacy policy.