AUTHENTICATION, ACCREDITATION & REPUTATION
White Paper Offers Advice for Marketers
NEW YORK - June 30, 2005 - In recent months, the Direct Marketing Association has strongly urged its members to comply with emerging standards for the authentication of e-mail messages. To help marketers navigate this fast changing and often confusing landscape, The DMA and its Interactive Marketing Advisory Board have teamed up with Bigfoot Interactive to develop a white paper offering practical, plain-English advice for marketers. The white paper also delves into accreditation and reputation checks on e-mail, which are issues that marketers should be paying attention to as well.

ISPs and other mailbox providers are increasingly looking to authentication as a way of reducing phishing, spoofing, and other forms of spam. Messages that do not "pass" authentication checks are much more likely to end up in a customer's junk folder or be blocked altogether. Accreditation and reputation solutions, when combined with authentication, are also helping to improve the reliability and deliverability of e-mail for legitimate marketers.

"Fraudulent e-mails erode the trust between marketers and consumers that is required to ensure a vibrant electronic marketplace," said John A. Greco, Jr., president and CEO, The DMA. "There are several affordable, interoperable, and easy-to-implement authentication solutions available today that can help make that marketplace more secure. Staying abreast of, understanding, and leveraging these key technology developments are important steps in protecting both corporate brands and consumer confidence."

The new white paper explains why ISPs and other mailbox providers are developing and implementing authentication, accreditation, and reputation (AAR) solutions, how AAR benefits both marketers and consumers, and offers descriptions of leading AAR solutions and how they are being adopted. In addition, the white paper highlights "keys to success" and offers practical recommendations for most effectively navigating e-mail delivery as AAR solutions continue to become more widely adopted.

"Our goal with this white paper is to simplify the AAR story and focus squarely on what marketers need to know in order to increase the delivery of legitimate e-mail communication initiatives," said Al DiGuido, CEO of Bigfoot Interactive. "The biggest challenge our industry faces right now is understanding the value and importance of implementing the viable technologies and solutions that exist today. By teaming with The DMA in developing this white paper, we hope to help educate thousands of marketers on e-mail authentication and the benefits they will derive from supporting its ongoing development and implementation."

The DMA estimates that legitimate commercial e-mail resulted in approximately $39 billion in sales in 2004, including about $9 billion in small business sales. The association believes that e-mail can deliver even more value for consumers and more dollars for the U.S. and global economies if scams proliferated through spam and phishing/spoofing can be reduced or eliminated.

The white paper is available online at www.the-dma.org/whitepapers/.

Editors Note: To help spread the word about authentication, The DMA and Bigfoot Interactive, along with other partners, are sponsoring the upcoming email authentication implementation summit on July 12 in New York, NY. For more information visit www.emailauthentication.org/summit2005.

About The DMA
The Direct Marketing Association (www.the-dma.org) is the leading trade association for businesses and organizations interested in direct, interactive, and database marketing, which in 2004 generated more than $2.3 trillion in US sales, including $143.3 billion in catalog sales and $52.5 billion in Web-driven sales. In addition to catalogs and the Web, DMA members employ a wide variety of marketing media, including mail, e-mail, telephone, newspapers and magazines, interactive television, and radio, among others. Founded in 1917, The DMA today has more than 5,200 corporate, affiliate, and chapter members from the US and 44 other nations, including 55 companies listed on the Fortune 100. Reflecting the significant and growing role that direct marketing plays in today's advertising mix, The DMA's membership represents marketers from every business segment, including catalogers, Internet retailers, retail stores, nonprofit organizations, advertising agencies, financial services providers, book and magazine publishers, book and music clubs, industrial manufacturers, and a host of other vertical segments, as well as the service industries that support marketers.

About Epsilon
Epsilon is a leading provider of multi-channel marketing services, technologies and database solutions. Through its combination of client-centric marketing solutions, Epsilon helps leading companies understand, measure, manage and optimize their customer relationships. The organization's end-to-end suite of integrated services includes marketing strategy, creative, data, technology, analytics and distribution services to produce multi-channel marketing programs that generate measurable results throughout the customer lifecycle.

In September 2005 Epsilon acquired Bigfoot Interactive (now Epsilon Interactive), the leading provider of strategic, ROI-focused email communications solutions and marketing automation technologies. Epsilon Interactive now serves as Epsilon's key offering in the interactive marketing and communications space. Founded in 1969 Epsilon is an Alliance Data company.

For more information see www.epsilon.com.

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