DoubleClick CEO on DMA Board

gbnewby writes "According to this press release, 'Kevin O'Connor, CEO and co-founder of DoubleClick, Inc, has been appointed to the Direct Marketing Association's Board of Directors.' This is scary. The DMA (along with the Federal Trade Commission) is responsible for the absence of any serious regulation of Internet junk mail (spam) in the US. We can expect more of the same lack of progress towards overcoming spam, looks like."

DMA serveth not us

[potluckman]

The DMA represents the interests of the marketers, not the consumers. As they say [the-dma.org], "The DMA is the industry's leading trade association, dedicated to helping our members increase their effectiveness and profitability. . . . The DMA delivers the tools and services that members need to succeed! Whether it is the latest industry knowledge and techniques, education, legislative representation [i.e. lobbying] or targeted marketing opportunities - we've got it covered!" [emph. added]

For better protection against spam than the DMA email preference service (that no real spammer would ever look at), check out www.spamcop.net [spamcop.net].

DMA/Spam vs. Regulation

[fuzzybunny]

This digresses a bit, but just a thought:

do we really _want_ spammers to be regulated, or to even have spam outlawed [cauce.org]?

Remember, this would be done by the same people who brought you the DMCA.

It occurs to me that projects like the Real Time Blackhole List [mail-abuse.org] or Sendmail's anti-spam configuration options [sendmail.org] serve the cause a lot better than blanket laws passed by technologically less-than-aware legislators?

It's quite possible that lobbying organizations like DMA actually help the idea of keeping the net free of legislative overkill in the long run...

Comments?

Marketing Research Ethics and Double Click

[Staciebeth]

I work (ick) for a Marketing Research Association that is in the process of trying to establish ethical guidelines for our members on internet research for marketing purposes. We have public forums for anyone to go and share their opinions. If you think what Double Click did is vile (or if you think they are just wonderful)and if you want to express concern about the Double Click CEO making it to the board of the AMA, I encourage you to go and post (post early, post often) and get these people to include your privacy conerns in their ethical guidelines for internet research.

Marketing Research Association Forums [216.150.20.77]

You can also e-mail me [mailto] with your concerns and I can pass them on to the ethics committee.

I try and explain to people here about privacy concerns, but a lot of them just don't get it. In the theory of "strength in numbers" maybe slashdot readers can help.