ATLANTA, October 18, 2004 - Even Fortune 1000 Marketers still lack understanding of CAN-SPAM, according to a new study from Silverpop, a leading provider of email marketing solutions. In Silverpop?s most recent study of email best practices, only fifty-seven percent of the Fortune 1000 marketers studied claimed to have comprehensive internal regulations in place to address the requirements of CAN-SPAM.

In response to these findings, Silverpop is introducing SafeSender^SM, its newest suite of compliance features designed to ensure that every email sent is 100 percent CAN-SPAM compliant. SafeSender^SM works beyond the marketing department so that interpersonal emails from call centers, sales, support and all other departments are compliant. Silverpop is the first vendor in the marketplace to provide a comprehensive set of tools that take human error out of the compliance equation and ensure consistency across the enterprise.

"CAN-SPAM compliance has come a long way, especially among larger companies. However, marketers are still struggling with the coordination of multiple lists and consistent compliance across different divisions of the enterprise,? said Bill Nussey, CEO of Silverpop. ?The problem is worse when it comes to interpersonal messages since many companies don't realize that these are also covered under CAN-SPAM. With SafeSender^SM, companies can be confident that all messages coming from their organization are 100 percent compliant."

SafeSender^SM is the first to combine the following features:

Suppression Synchronization: Unique to Silverpop, every message sent will be matched against an integrated suppression list. Whether an interpersonal or marketing communications message, this automatic feature leaves no room for human error and ensures that individuals who opt-out will not receive future messages. The suppression list can also be easily synchronized with other sources of suppression data, like call center or sales force automation systems.

Viral Suppression: Not only are interpersonal and marketing communications checked against an integrated suppression list, viral messages are covered as well. Using this feature will prohibit a message from being forwarded to someone that has opted-out from the original sender?s list.

CAN-SPAM Component Audit: Organization administrators, who set the parameters for their company?s users, have the option of including and requiring a pre-defined CAN-SPAM compliance statement in every message sent.

Opt-out Audit: Organization administrators also are able to require that every message includes an opt-out link. If an opt-out link is missing, the message is not sent.

Many of the marketers surveyed had an overall misunderstanding of the complexities of CAN-SPAM compliance. First, there was a widespread misconception that CAN-SPAM compliance is achieved by simply placing an opt-out and a physical address in each mailing. While these are required, compliance is much more complex and a large amount of internal coordination is needed, especially across large organizations. Secondly, a significant portion of the marketers surveyed were not monitoring interpersonal messages, such as an email from a sales rep to a prospect, for compliance. Some marketers were simply unaware of this requirement, and others indicated that they lacked the tools to make this happen.

Other recent industry findings support the need for CAN-SPAM compliance tools. JupiterResearch encourages marketers to seek a vendor that is fully compliant and recent statistics from its 2004 Email Marketing Buyers Guide state that only half of the vendors reviewed offered a mechanism for CAN-SPAM compliance. Silverpop aims to close this gap with SafeSender^SM.

About Silverpop
Silverpop is a leading provider of permission-based email marketing solutions, strategy and services. Ranked as having the highest business value and richest feature set by JupiterResearch in 2004, Silverpop was also acknowledged by Forrester Research as a "strong performer" that "stands out with an interface that is quite easy to use while providing strong functionality." Silverpop helps marketers cultivate and maintain long-term strategic relationships with customers and partners by maximizing the potential of email as a relationship tool. Its flexible service model allows marketers to choose from full service, ASP or install and easily move between the three, making it an ideal solution for marketers at any stage of using email. Silverpop provides email marketing to industry leading companies including The Bombay Company, British Sky Broadcasting, Weather.com and more.