An interesting story trickled out in today’s New York Times about AT&T using less-than-responsible mobile messaging tactics in a recent American Idol campaign.

AT&T sent the promotional message to a “significant number” of its subscribers but did not seem to apply traditional opt-in practices to this campaign. Apparently, their standards of what constitutes spam is different from what email marketers consider it to be, with their corporate spokesman going so far as to assert that “it couldn’t be more open and transparent.”

Mr. Siegel said the message went to subscribers who had voted for “Idol” singers in the past, and other “heavy texters.” He said the message could not be classified as spam because it was free and because it allowed people to decline future missives.

First of all, what exactly is a “heavy texter?” That sounds like some sort of text messaging addict who needs a 12-step treatment program. And second, how can you blindly justify sending these people communications as if they’d opted-in?

While I’m not a compliance expert, I would guess that AT&T could have saved themselves a boatload of trouble by sending the message only to previous Idol texters, and then phrasing their message as a request to opt-in more than a straight advertisement. If I was running the show over there, my 160 characters would have gone something like this: “American Idol is back! Calling all past Idol voters: visit us online at (web address) to find out more. Would you like to receive future messages from us? Opt-in at (short code) or ignore this message to be removed.” 

That would have been rather easy, no?

The Federal Trade Commission scored a major victory yesterday in shutting down HerbalKing, one of the most prolific spam groups on the Internet.

This is obviously a big boost for legitimate email marketers around the world. No one likes receiving spam, yet it constitutes an estimated 90% of all sent email. Many spam operations have been prosecuted by the FTC in the past, but HerbalKing is “perhaps the most extensive they had ever encountered, with ties to Australia, New Zealand, India, China and the United States.”

To give you an idea of just how big HerbalKing’s operation was, consider this: they could send 10 billion e-mail messages a day. That means that HerbalKing sent more messages in a few days than legitimate, permission-based email marketers sent during all of last year.

Our respected colleague David Daniels published a nifty little report on deliverability last week at JupiterResearch, and there are a few little tidbits that bear repeating for the responsible masses.

Daniels reiterates the continued danger lurking behind “dormant” email masses, which are defined as email addresses that have been abandoned by their owner. As the nickname implies, dormant addresses look like they are in permanent hibernation, but in reality they have the potential to erupt, and not in a good way.

Some of these inactive subscribers can be linked to dormant accounts, and these dormant accounts are increasingly being used by ISPs to create honey pots or spam traps. Marketers hitting too many dormant accounts could have the delivery disposition of their messages changed (e.g., completely blocked, delivered to the bulk folder).

You heard the man — it’s time to dig into your email response data and separate those loved ones who simply aren’t answering the door from those who packed up and moved altogether. According to the report, this dormant segment probably represents a big chunk of your total subscriber list, so don’t be surprised if your viable list size decreases significantly. We know from experience that it’s more important to make every send count than to simply send more!