FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Two-Thirds of Online Organizations Violate CAN-SPAM Act, Says Email Marketing Practices Study

TUCSON, Ariz. (July 13, 2004) - In the largest study of its kind ever conducted, 1,057 prominent online organizations, including many Fortune 500 firms, were secretly audited for CAN-SPAM compliance by Arial Software, a developer of permission email marketing software and outspoken opponent of spam. The results of the study are now published and available for downloading at www.ArialSoftware.com.

For the study, titled "2004 B2C Can-Spam Compliance Audit," Arial Software subscribed to 1,057 email newsletters from a variety of organizations, then tracked the practices and characteristics of emails received. The findings revealed widespread noncompliance with the federal CAN-SPAM Act, yet curiously found that noncompliance did not result in the receiving of spam emails. While 66% blatantly violate CAN-SPAM by failing to include unsubscribe links or failing to clearly identify the source of the emails, only 0.4% (3 out of 1,057) actually sent spam emails.

"This study shows that CAN-SPAM Act compliance does not correlate strongly with actual spamming behavior among online businesses," explains Mike Adams, architect of the study and president/CEO of Arial Software.

The study revealed other concerns, however, such as the surprising finding that 93% of online organizations fail to use a double confirm subscription handling process, creating a wide open security risk that would allow any hacker to easily destroy their in-house email list by posting an endless stream of dictionary email addresses.

A double confirm email subscription is defined as sending an email message to the subscriber asking them to click a confirmation link. Once the link is clicked, the subscriber is considered confirmed and subscribed. A single confirm, in contrast, is an email message notifying the recipient they have been subscribed, with no confirmation action needed.

A complete description of the trends found during the "2004 B2C Can-Spam Compliance Audit," including a breakdown of subscription handling by percentage of audited companies, can be reviewed at http://www.ArialSoftware.com.

About Arial Software

Founded in 1993, Arial Software is widely considered the leading industry pioneer in permission email marketing software. The company’s products are used by thousands of businesses, non-profits, associations and other groups to compose and send email newsletters and personalized messages directly to subscribers, customers, prospects and members.

Arial Software’s mission is to be a universal provider of software tools to automate, personalize and measure meaningful B2C communications. Company information can be found at the Arial Software Press Center, http://www.arialsoftware.com/presscenter.htm

Contact: Steve Delgado, Media Relations, 1-520-615-1954, ext. 15.