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MICROSOFT BECAME THE DARLING OF THE E-MAIL marketing world last month — yes, Microsoft, the evil empire itself — by adding an unsubscribe link to its free e-mail user interface so subscribers will quit reporting permission-based e-mail as spam when they simply want to opt out.

The link has begun appearing in place of the report-and-delete button on some e-mails in Windows Live, the new free e-mail service that's replacing Hotmail.

The system is still being tested and the complaint button may appear along with the unsubscribe button in the final product. But marketers are calling on other Internet service providers — especially Yahoo! and AOL — to follow Microsoft's lead.

“We hope that all ISPs follow suit and we get to a level of accountability that is consistent across the Internet,” says Ben Isaacson, privacy and compliance leader for e-mail service provider CheetahMail's parent Experian.

So far, though, Microsoft stands alone.

MICROSOFT BECAME THE darling of the e-mail marketing world last month — yes, Microsoft, the evil empire itself — by adding an unsubscribe link to its free e-mail user interface so subscribers will quit reporting permission-based e-mail as spam when they simply want to opt out.

The link has begun appearing in place of the report-and-delete button on some e-mails in Windows Live, the new free e-mail service replacing Hotmail.

However, the system is still being tested and the complaint button may appear along with the unsubscribe button in the final product.

“We are still in beta and there are some [user interface] design changes yet to come,” said Brian Holdsworth, senior product manager for the Windows Live platform. “The eventual plan, which can change based on beta feedback, is the ability for somebody to say ‘This is spam’ or ‘This is not spam; I want to unsubscribe.’”

Non-spamming e-mail marketers have been urging Internet service providers to eliminate their spam-complaint buttons because consumers often use them to prevent mailers' messages from arriving even though they signed up for the e-mail.

Now that Microsoft has added the unsubscribe button to its e-mail user interface, marketers are calling for other ISPs — especially Yahoo! and AOL — to follow suit.

But so far Microsoft appears to stand alone on this issue.

“We hope that all ISPs follow suit and we get to a level of accountability that is consistent across the Internet,” said Ben Isaacson, privacy and compliance leader for e-mail service provider CheetahMail's parent Experian.

Josh Baer, chief technology officer at marketing services firm Datran Media, said he and others in the e-mail industry have been lobbying ISPs to add unsubscribe buttons to their user interfaces for years.

“For a year or two, they've all been saying ‘Yeah, that's a good idea,’ but they've been very noncommittal,” he said. “Hotmail's stepping up to the plate. When are AOL and Yahoo! going to follow?”

Yahoo! spokeswoman Kelley Podboy said the portal has no plans to add an unsubscribe button to its user interface.

“Through the ‘This is spam/This is not spam’ buttons, our users tell us what is/is not spam and we continually adjust our filtering technology based on that user feedback,” she wrote in an e-mail.

However, e-mail recipients often use the buttons to prevent mailers' messages from arriving even though they signed up for them. In a recent Return Path survey, nearly 79% of consumers admitted that they've hit the “spam” or “junk” e-mail button to get rid of e-mail they don't want. Some 37% do it as a way to unsubscribe from things they'd asked to receive, according to Return Path.

Each complaint counts as a black mark against the sender. Too many complaints result in ISPs blocking that mailer's messages.

But when users hit the Windows Live unsubscribe button, that will not register as a spam complaint, according to Microsoft.

“Choosing unsubscribe does the same thing as delete, except it sends the notice back to the sender to say ‘Please unsubscribe,’” said Microsoft's Holdsworth.

E-mail marketing executives are surprised that Microsoft was first out of the gate with this development.

“I really expected it to come from AOL first because they were first with the‘Report spam’ button,”said Baer.

When asked if AOL plans to test an unsubscribe button, the company's postmaster, Charles Stiles, declined to comment.

Under Microsoft's new scheme, e-mail arriving with a valid list-unsubscribe function — a line of code that allows ISPs to automatically forward unsubscribe requests to the sender — will get an unsubscribe link as long as it passes Microsoft's internal “reputation” test determining the sender is not a spammer.

No matter what form the final product takes, an unsubscribe link is a significant step forward for non-spamming e-mail marketers, said Baer, who eight years ago wrote the list-unsubscribe technique Microsoft is using.

“There might be some things that [Microsoft] might tweak, but we're excited that they're even thinking about this,”said Baer.

He added that Microsoft executives originally balked at adding an unsubscribe option to their user interface because they didn't want to confuse their e-mail users.

“I never thought about giving the unsubscribe option for trusted messages only,” said Baer. “To me, that looks like a great solution.”

Though e-mail deliverability company Return Path's Sender Score Certified system is Microsoft's official reputation service provider, e-mailers don't have to be certified by Return Path to get the unsubscribe link, according to Microsoft. Return Path's whitelist is reportedly just one of the criteria Microsoft will use to determine if the sender's reputation is good enough to get the link.

Also, currently the sender's “from” address must be in recipients' address books or on their “allow” lists to get the unsubscribe link, but that also could change in the final version, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft is in the process of moving its Hotmail address holders to Windows Live. The change reportedly should be completed in the next four to six months.