Ken Magill has a story over at DIRECT about how Barack Obama’s email list has been tainted by pranksters. Basically, some pranksters signed up to Obama’s list using some prominent anti-spammers’ email addresses. It’s an example of how a very high profile email list is at risk if you don’t employ the double opt-in (or “confirmed” opt-in) method.
We’ve seen similar cases here at MailChimp. A very high profile radio host (who I listen to almost every day after work) once signed up for an account on our system, and his first campaign got some furious complaints from a group of prominent anti-spammers that I also hold in high regard. There’s no way this radio host is an evil spammer who’d harvest or buy email lists (doesn’t need to), and there’s no way this normally calm, very experienced anti-spam group would get so mad about a little opt-in prank (happens to them all the time), so I did some investigating…