Managing Customer Opt-Outs in a Complex Global Environment

The day to day rhetoric associated with spam control focuses on measures, technology, rules or fees to impose order or control. These efforts concentrate on the broad range of messages throughout the internet in the hope that by reducing or stopping the flow of ‘spam’ the problem of spam will be solved. This is analogous to fighting a fire when it is at its apex rather than preventing it in the first place. IBM’s opt-out management application, The Global E-mail Cleansing System (GECS), and the associated business process attempts to control the e-mail communications between the enterprise and its constituencies. This increases the satisfaction of its customers while ensuring that, at least in the case of IBM’s communications, customers and others can feel confident that IBM is doing its best to ensure their privacy is respected.