The Authentication Bandwagon: Trade Group Jumps on Board

Call it visionary or call it too little, too late. But the top direct marketing trade group is now requiring that members observe e-mail authentication.

The Direct Marketing Association announced last week during its annual DMA05 conference that members must start using e-mail authentication protocols as a condition of membership. That includes members who publish e-zines.

To facilitate this, the DMA has created best practices information to help members understand the authentication process, which validates the source of e-mail, according to Direct magazine. The intent is to curtail spam, phishing and other forms of fraudulent e-mail.

“E-mail authentication protects the integrity of responsible marketers’ brands and improves the likelihood that legitimate e-mail—whether it’s a marketing offer, airline ticket confirmation or financial statement—gets through,” said DMA president John A. Greco.

Several questions remain about this scheme.

1.How will the DMA know that members are complying?

2.Why did the group wait until a few weeks before the Microsoft standard becomes mandatory?

3.Why didn’t the DMA talk more about the real objective of authentication? “As important as it may be, authentication is a means to an end–not an end in and by itself,” wrote Dale Lewis, vice president of marketing and strategy for e-mail platform provider StrongMail Systems and co-chair of the committee of the Email Service Provider Coalition, in DirectBuzz, Direct magazine’s conference blog. “The end game is e-mail sender accountability. And what I’ve yet to hear from the DMA is why that’s important to its members.”

Authentication is easy to achieve. But observers fear that some companies may not see the importance of it.