Organization:Direct marketing association

International Federation of Direct Marketing Associations

23 direct marketing trade associations from five continents established an International Federation of Direct Marketing Associations. Founded in 1989, the IFDMA was established to develop firm lines of communications between direct marketers around the world, and is dedicated to improving the practice and communicating the value of direct marketing; and to promoting the highest standards for ethical conduct and effective self-regulation of the direct marketing community.

Purposes

The purposes are generally:

• Promoting direct marketing techniques and companies to consumers.
• Fighting negative images of the direct marketing industry.
• Providing training and professional development opportunities to marketers.
• Conducting industry research.
• Hosting networking conferences for marketers.
• Promoting direct marketing, informing consumers of the safeguards that exist, and promoting the DMA as their protector, contact point and regulator.
• Trying to ensure that their members create consumer confidence.
• Advising how companies should use information by operating within the terms of Data Protection Acts.
• Lobbying against Data Protection Acts which protect data against redistribution.
• Lobbying against laws forbidding e-mail address harvesting.

Controversy

Direct Marketing Associations have attracted controversy, as people believe they aim to promote spam and to defend junk mail and unsolicited telemarketing, which many consumers find irritating and intrusive. They have been accused, by The Spamhaus Project and Electronic Frontier Foundation respectively, of promoting spam and working against open standards (i.e., Do Not Track) that seek to protect consumer privacy from tracking by online marketers. They have also been accused of using a "limited", unrealistic definition of spam.

Telemarketing legislation

The United States National Do Not Call Registry, went into effect in 2003. Under the law, it is illegal for telemarketers to call anyone who has registered themselves on the list. After the list had operated for one year, over 62 million people had signed up. The telemarketing industry opposed the creation of the list, but most telemarketers have complied with the law and refrained from calling people who are on the list.

Canada has passed legislation to create a similar Do Not Call List. In other countries it is voluntary, such as the New Zealand Name Removal Service.

See also

• Data Protection Act 1998
• Direct marketing
• Direct Marketing Association (UK)
• Direct Marketing Association (USA)
• Direct Marketing Association (South Africa)

References

• Direct Marketing