Week in review: UK expansion, acquisitions and spam policy

Expansion, acquisitions and addressing the ongoing problems with spam marked this past week in the e-mail industry.

Goodmail has expanded its services to the Britain, following in the footsteps of such e-mail marketing services firms as e-Dialog, Datran Media and Lyris UK.

The spirit of mergers and acquisitions that was seen in the ad serving space with the WPP acquisition of 24/7 Real Media, the Blackstone Group's bidding on Alliance Data, ValueAct Capital's buying of Acxiom and Microsoft's purchase of aQuantive hit the e-mail world on a smaller scale. E-mail marketing firm Blue Factory acquired RSSFWD in a move to add RSS functionality to its existing platform.

Also, last week, the DMA held the E-mail Policy Day in Washington D.C. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, opened the event, encouraging industry leaders to fight against the Internet tax initiative. He compared the proposed tax initiative to buying milk in the store and then having to pay again when you put it in your coffee.

Finally, on that day, executives from AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft stress the importance of sending e-mail only when consumers want it, a tricky task indeed. Beyond establishing permissions and reputation, the executives said that if a consumer doesn't want the e-mail, then marketers shouldn't sent it, even if there is an existing relationship. Ever buy a pair of black shoes from a company only to be sent an e-mail offer for the same pair? That's what they were talking about.