In a move that should worry every email marketer, Yahoo Mail has blacklisted Randy Cassingham’s “This Is True” email newsletter.

Randy – known as a “white hat” search engine optimization expert – has been publishing his newsletter since 1994 and requires his subscribers to: (1) opt-in to receive the newsletter, and (2) confirm they wish to receive the newsletter. As such, he has built up what is referred to as a “confirmed optin” or, less accurately, “double optin” email subscriber list.

Yet, that didn’t stop Yahoo from blacklisting Randy’s email address. Given that Yahoo email users constitute over 20,000 of Randy’s subscribers, and the vast majority – 70 percent – can no longer
receive Randy’s emails, this is devastating for both Randy and his loyal subscribers.

Evidently, the ban was caused by some subscribers clicking on the “This Is Spam” button in their Yahoo Mail control panel, rather than simply unsubscribing from the newsletter.

So while spammers keep on mass-distributing their rubbish… legitimate mailers get their emails banned. It ain’t right.

Sources: Shawn Collins, “Yahoo Mail Blacklists a Respected White Hat”, Affiliate Tip, August 2, 2008, Randy Cassingham’s This Is True blog

This entry was posted on Friday, August 8th, 2008 at 5:02 am and is filed under Email Marketing, News and Comment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.