The Direct Marketing Association’s (The DMA) President & CEO John A. Greco, Jr. today participated on the "Real World Effects" panel at the E-mail Authentication Summit sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Washington, DC.
"We need to protect brands, prevent consumer fraud, and ensure trust in e-mail," said Greco.
"A lot is at stake," he said. "The DMA estimates that legitimate commercial e-mail resulted in about $33 billion in sales last year, including $8 billion in small business sales. We think that e-mail can deliver even more value for consumers and more dollars for the U.S. and global economies if we can reduce spam that is interfering with legitimate commercial communications.
"E-mail authentication offers the promise of helping to reduce spam, address some of the major challenges that currently affect legitimate e-mail senders, and encourage the continued evolution of e-mail as a global vehicle for communication, commerce, and education. In the end, this is an effort to protect brands and consumers.
"We recognize the FTC for its leadership in fighting spam and hosting this summit," Greco said. "At the same time, progress in this area continues, as the private sector tests and deploys ‘phase one’ IP-based authentication solutions like Sender ID and SPF, cryptographic protocols like DomainKeys and Identified Internet Mail, and others."
"While we recognize that authentication, by itself, will not solve all of the problems in the current e-mail environment, our hope is that it will have a strong impact on the growing problem of spoofing and phishing schemes that damage brands and defraud consumers," Greco continued.
"It is clear that the success of e-mail authentication depends on the widespread adoption of an interoperable standard by ISPs, e-mail senders and e-mail receivers," he continued. "As the largest and only trade association at this summit representing legitimate marketers that employ e-mail and the service industries that support them, The DMA is pleased to participate in this important discussion."
"The DMA and its subsidiary, the Association for Interactive Marketing (AIM), have lead the way in getting marketers up-to-speed on how to comply with authentication technologies and to educate them about these important developments," Greco said. "Through a series of member-briefings and Webinars, we have reached out to thousands of marketers over the past six months, and we will continue to do so as developments unfold."
"For authentication to achieve its promise, it should be an interoperable authentication standard that is inexpensive and easy-to-implement," he said
