Lashback Launching Brand Monitoring Service

Lashback, the company whose services help marketers tell whether affiliates are honoring opt-out requests and complying with the Can-Spam Act, has launched a new service called Brand Alert.

According to the company’s chief executive, Brandon Phillips, the new service allows marketers to search the Lashback’s large database of commercial e-mails using any keyword they choose to see, for example, who might be mentioning their brand in a pitch.

“It’s an extension of our database,” said Phillips.

Lashback’s other business-to-business services are UnsubMonitor and Can Spam Compliance Monitor, which help marketers tell if affiliates are honoring opt-out requests and are complying with Can-Spam Act requirements.

The offerings are an extension of Lashback’s core service, UnsubSafe, a free unsubscribe service consumers can download to their computers. Whenever they want to opt out of an e-mail list, they can click on UnsubSafe and be assured their address won't be abused.

LashBack then analyzes the e-mail header to see if the sender can be trusted to honor an unsubscribe, based on past behavior. If so, LashBack submits the consumer's e-mail through the unsubscribe button. If not, LashBack adds the sender to its anti-spam blocking list — if the sender isn't already on it.

According to Phillips, tens of thousands of consumers use UnsubSafe, from which LashBack gets most of its unsubscribe data for its other services. It also seeds companies' suppression files with unused e-mail addresses of its own. Phillips said the company currently has seed addresses on more than 400,000 suppression files.

“We know when a suppression file is being misused,” he said.

Lashback claims to monitor data from more than 7 million sending IP addresses.

“We receive mail right out of consumer inboxes, about 2 million a day,” said Phillips. “Because we are processing these unsubscribe requests, we can see [for example] when a consumer receives e-mail after 10 days.” Can-Spam requires e-mailers to process opt-out requests within 10 days.