The e-mail accreditation company Goodmail Systems is partnering with Internet privacy organization Truste to help volume email senders establish their bonafides as legitimate and trusted senders.

Prospective companies seeking to use CertifiedEmail who earn TRUSTe’s Email Privacy Seal (EPS) certification will enjoy a reduced Goodmail application fee. TRUSTe EPS certification requires a company to offer opt-in email with prominent notice of intended use.

Opponents to AOL’s implementation of Goodmail accuse the service as email tax, allowing spammers to buy their way into user inboxes. Goodmail pointed out that they have been rejected more than 75 percent of applicants. Most of them are legitimate senders that have high complaint rates.

Goodmail is gaining a stronger position with the partnership with Truste. Just FYI, this is Truste’s Email Privacy Seal Requirements.

The Email Privacy Seal, which states definitively “We Don’t Spam,¨ is displayed on web forms anywhere that email addresses are collected. Companies that want to become TRUSTe Email Privacy Sealholders are required to provide consumer safeguards at every step of the email process. The safeguards include:

• Required consumer consent to send commercial or promotional email.
• Required disclosure at point of email collections as to the nature of email messages to be sent, the sharing of collected emails with third parties other than service providers and the receiving of commercial or promotional email as a condition of receiving a service.
• An easily-understood and easy-to-use unsubscribe option must be included in all commercial or promotional email messages.
• Companies must institute a complaint resolution process, providing comprehensive contact information and a link to the TRUSTe Watchdog site for third-party dispute resolution.

Source: Goodmail Systems.