Summary
1. eMail is considered a personal communication channel. If your email communication is perceived as exploiting the privileged business to customer relationship, you can expect a hostile reaction from your customer.
2. If you send emails to your customers without their permission you do so at your own peril. Spam (unsolicited commercial email) should never be a part of your customer communications.
3. You must develop a concise and unequivocal privacy and/or permission statement that outlines exactly how you will treat your customers' personal information.
4. A good privacy policy should state:
a) What information is gathered or trackedb) What the company does with the information that is gathered or trackedc) With whom the company shares informationd) The opt-out policye) The policy on correcting and updating personally identifiable informationf) How the recipient can delete or deactivate his or her name from the company's database.5. It's a good idea to link to your privacy policy on every email you send out
6. Although there is a lot of legislation and other issues associated with email, that should not deter you from fully utilizing this important channel.
7. Expect some negative reaction no matter how careful you are with your opt-in policy.
