Mass email marketers can now reassure subscribers that their email addresses and personal data will only be used in accordance with the law and the mutual agreement terms.

Relemail service, launched December 13^th, audits and certifies email privacy practices.

The job of Relemail is to monitor the organizations that send commercial email and see if they meet the standards of privacy and professionalism. On the one hand there are the standards that these companies commit to, in their “Terms of Agreement” page; on the other hand, they come under the rules imposed by commercial email legislation and in a larger view, under what is commonly known as “netiquette”.

Relemail uses a team of “investigators” that subscribe their email addresses — incognito — to various newsletters and ezines. Those who meet all fifteen ethical email practices quoted by Relemail are given the right to display on their website the Relemail seal. But all the results of these investigations are made public at on the Relemail, and Internet users can consult them before subscribing to a website. At the moment, about 800 addresses have been investigated by Relemail.

Mike Adams, the inventor of Relemail service, is also the man who created the first permission-based email marketing software. The industry clearly needed a process through which ethical email senders could establish their reputations with potential subscribers, Adams said.

Mike Adams' service is meant to help both email marketers and subscribers to meet their overall goals. Other personalities in the email marketing industry joined the Relemail board, offering their expertise to improve the service and help it become an industry standard.