EZ Pass for Email

I love EZ Pass.  That’s the name of the system that drivers use here in the NY Metro area to fly past the tolls at 20+ MPH.

In the 90s, some publication put me on a list of influential people of some sort.  Clearly they were mistaken, but in any case they asked me something like 10 questions.  One of them was what I wished I had invented.  Without hesitation, I answered EZ Pass.

It’s a tremendous system.  If you meet the qualifications, pay the bills, and do some upfront work, you get to fly through the tolls.  Ive always loved that idea.

And so EZ Pass has come to email.

It’s called white lists.  And they are becoming a real business.  There have been white lists for as long as there has been commercial email.  But mostly they’ve been kept by mail recievers (ISPs and anti-spam software companies for the most part).

They’ve been pretty much what they sound like.  Lists of senders that are known to be legit enough to let through wihtout question.

But that approach leaves a lot to be desired. 

First, if every mail reciever has to keep their own white list, how do senders get on every one of them?

Second, its expensive for these recievers to monitor all the senders and determine which ones should be on and off the white list.

It’s a classic case of the market needing a third party to provide a shared whitelist.

The oldest and best third party white list program is known as Bonded Sender.

Tomorrow our portfolio company Return Path will announce that it has acquired Bonded Sender and will add this market leading white list to Return Path’s impressive set of delivery assurance solutions.

I am really excited about this deal.  Return Path has built a portfolio of services that every emailer needs to have.  Bonded Sender completes the portfolio. 

If you are sending email and have delivery issues, you should be using Return Path, and Bonded Sender.

Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path, has posted a longer, and better, explanation of all of this on his blog.  If you are involved in email or internet marketing, go read Matt’s blog, and become a Bonded Sender and Return Path customer.