For the first time since I have lived in Orem (over 14 years), I received an e-mail from the Utah State Party Republican Party. This came in the form of a message from Stan Lockhart, Utah State Republican Party Chair. The subject line was simply “Thank You” (you can read the message contents on the blog I write for my Republican precinct).
Since then, I have received three additional e-mail messages from the State Republican Party with the following subject lines:
The e-mails contained messages from each of the Republican candidates for the respective offices (you can also read these messages on my precinct blog).
However, there was a not so subtle difference in these three messages when compared with the first one sent from the Party. The beginning of each e-mail contained the following text:
IMPORTANT NOTE: The Utah Republican Party has chosen not to share delegate e-mails with candidates. To facilitate communication between candidates and delegates, please see the message(s) below from candidate(s) seeking the Republican Party Nomination. All candidates who will have contested races at the State Convention on May 10, 2008 have been invited to send messages via the Utah Republican Party to State Delegates. Weekly e-mails will be sent every Tuesday from the Utah Republican Party with submissions from participating candidates. This e-mail contains the opinions of candidates and are not necessarily the opinion of the Utah Republican Party. Each message was written by the candidate and should be attributed as such. Please contact the candidate directly with questions.
Also of note is the system the Utah Republican Party is using to communicate with the delegates. All four messages were sent out by the Party using e-mail management software from Constant Contact. (see the graphic below of the standard “Constant Contact” Footer) (NOTE: I can’t get the graphic to load from my blog editing software-I’ll keep trying to fix this.)
Constant Contact is a web service software product. The software gives the organizations that use it lots of resources to manage e-mail communications including email templates, along with tools to build, manage and secure e-mail lists. It also allows organizations to track and generate reports about the success/failure of e-mail delivery efforts, the number of e-mails opened by the recipients, etc.
So, what does using this software do for the delegates?
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It preserves the privacy of the e-mail address lists from the candidates.
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It gives the delegates the option to “opt out” of receiving these e-mail communications.
While I laud the efforts at preserving privacy, I have concerns with the Party’s intermediary role in communication between candidates and delegates. Here’s why:
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The software centralizes distribution of messages through the Party. There are no direct e-mail communications from the candidates. Instead, the Party sees them first, lays the mail messages out for distribution, and has all data regarding the distribution and usage by the delegates of the messages.
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The privacy of the delegates is compromised in that the Party can (by means of the Constant Contact software’s web analytics features) see which delegates are actually opening the messages, and if they’re forwarding them on.
The Constant Contact Website says the following about the software’s e-mail tracking and reporting capabilities (text in italics):
Email Tracking and Reporting
Learn more about your contacts with eye-opening reports
Real-time email tracking and reporting lets you know how many emails were delivered, which addresses bounced, and why-within minutes of sending your email campaign. You also get reports on who opened your email, which links generated the most interest, and who clicked on each one. This valuable information will help you to determine your contacts’ interests, the best day and time to send your email campaigns and much more!
See who opened your email campaigns, and what they clicked on
- How many emails were sent and delivered
- What percentage of your contacts opened
See how your email list is growing and who is opting out
- How many contacts opted in or opted out
- How many contacts forwarded emails to a friend
Compare past email campaigns, get information on bounces, and more
- Identify emails that bounced
- Compare results from your three most recent campaigns
Privacy Realities
In an effort to answer privacy concerns about e-mail address disclosure, the Party–not the candidates–will have all the information on how these e-mails were delivered, opened, and clicked by the delegates. By using e-mail management software, what the Party has done (intentionally or not) is increase the privacy exposure for the delegates as they will know which delegates are opening these e-mails and how the delegates are using the e-mail messages–including knowledge of which e-mails the delegates are forwarding on to others.
If you consider the useful life of these e-mail addresses for a particular candidate versus the uses of the Party, I believe we have a much larger privacy concern by this centralized party control of the message flow–and the means for the Party to check up on the delegates’ e-mail reading habits. I know that’s not what I signed up for when I gave my e-mail address to the Party.
There’s also a big potential risk of candidate objections (and perhaps litigation) over freedom of speech and equal access concerns in regards to candidate-to-delegate communications that this post doesn’t begin to explore. I’ll leave that to the legal minds who read this blog.
I have anlready communicated these concerns to the State Party Leadership. If you wish to do so, you can, too. You’ll find the necessary contact information for the Utah State Republican Party Leadership by clicking here.
The state GOP had better make some changes, the more I hear the less inclined I am to have any association with such a group.
Kip,
For some reason earlier this year I started receiving regular emails from Chris Cannon (via Constant Contact). I don’t know how he or they got my email, other perhaps through a previous year’s caucus meeting. I probably put my email down when I signed the attendance roll. There are, however, a few things of interest here:
1. I am not, nor have I ever been a precinct officer, so emails of all attendees are likely being shared and put into the email database.
2. I am not in Chris Cannon’s district, so I don’t know why his organization or the Republican party put me on his list.
3. Assuming it was accidental, I attempted to unsubscribe, using the link at the bottom of the email. Three times. With no success. Emails kept coming and coming. Like you, being a technology professional, I find it hard to believe that an email marketing company like Constant Contact is manually processing these requests. It is easily automated. I can only assume that they are either ignoring unsubscribe requests or their unsubscribe request mechanism is broken. It was only after going onto Constant Contact’s website, and filling out their Contact Us form with threats to file SPAM complaints against them and Chris Cannon’s re-election organization that I got some action and finally got my name removed with an apology from them.
If the Republican Party wants to use this mechanism of communication, I am not wholly opposed to it (although I do share some the concerns that you have raised). However they absolutely MUST honor requests from people to have their name removed from lists they do not want to be on.
Thanks for your comment, Scott.
The Cannon Campaign e-mails I have received have come from a system produced by a San Diego, California-based company called Complete Campaigns (http://www.completecampaigns.com/). Here’s some text from their “About Us” page:
“CompleteCampaigns.com provides outstanding web-based services to help campaigns effectively track supporters, voters, fundraising, and volunteers.
“Unlike software solutions housed on a computer or network, CompleteCampaigns.com is available to its clients from any computer with internet access. This allows real-time sharing of information between campaign headquarters, off-site consultants, volunteers working from the field or from home, and satellite offices, eliminating the need for multiple databases, which can create confusion and duplicate efforts.
“Our company goal is to provide superior service and support, allowing campaigns to work at their maximum efficiency with our products. To that end, twenty-four hour support is on call for emergencies, and our clients enjoy unlimited access to support and training.”
I completely agree with your comments about immediately honoring “opt out” requests. Failure to do so is a violation of the Can Spam Act of 2003 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_Spam_Act for some information on the act).
I don’t have any problem with a candidate using this kind of software (assuming legitimate access to the e-mail addresses, sufficient opt-out features, etc.).
What I object to is the Party mediating (at best) and monitoring (at worst) the communications between the candidates and the delegates. This, to me, is far more insidious than the mere disclosure of my e-mail address to a third-party.