However, there is a caveat: suppose that you know, as a professional, that there is a domain somewhere that you know, with the knowledge borne of knowing, that you most assuredly don’t want your customers sending any mail to whatsoever. Hypothetically, let’s suppose that this domain is called “whew.com”, or perhaps “rhyolite.com”. Now, being a competent email marketer, you block your sending systems from sending amy messages whatsoever to those domains, and add them to your global flag lists such that any sender who uploads email addresses that include those domains are automagically pointed out to your operations staff, AS WELL as automagically precluding you from mailing to them.

What happens next is a potential minor PR disaster, as the frothing nutbar who owns that domain — that domain that you already know you have no earthly business sending any marketing mail to whatsoever — complains publicly and loudly that you are ‘listwashing’ and ‘operating a global suppression list’ in order to prevent even the appearance of any impropriety, never mind that doing so is a) the law, b) a good idea even if in weren’t the law, and c) really the domain owner’s damn fault for being such an obstinate crank in the first place.

The irony here is that I’ve seen the obstinate cranks both complain about commercial email even when it is solicited AND insist that allowing a spam to go through was a far more heinous transgression than allowing a non-spam to be filtered, and yet, when that very same crank signs up for email notifications from his bank, and can’t get them, he’s surprised by this?