Goodmail has rejected more than 75% of the companies that have applied for its Certified Email program, according to the company's chief executive, Richard Gingras.
Gingras said most of the rejections are because the applicants' spam-complaint rates are too high. He declined to specify what constitutes too high a complaint rate.
"Our criteria are very rigorous and the fact of the matter is that a lot of folks out there just don't qualify," he said. "Most senders say they're on AOL's enhanced whitelist and they're not."
AOL maintains two so-called whitelists of senders that meet certain unpublished good-behavior criteria such as low spam complaint rates, and as a result, reportedly have an easier time getting their e-mail delivered intact. The enhanced whitelist is the stricter of the two.
Goodmail will put its stamp of approval only on e-mail to applicants' existing customers or existing members of the applicants' organizations, said Gingras.
Goodmail will also reject applicants if they've been in business less than a year, said Gingras.
John Rizzi, the chief executive of e-mail service provider e-Dialog, said one reason for Goodmail's high rejection rate may be that e-mailers with the most questionable marketing practices are lining up first.
E-mail this story
Printer-friendly version 
Bookmark this page