Not Cool, Barack
November 11th, 2008 by John BrianBack 
in January, I wrote a post lambasting John McCain’s campaign for putting their email list up as collateral.
Now, as the Washington Post reports (h/t The Notion via TechPresident), we learn that Barack Obama considered the same thing: offering their email list as collateral for a loan. While they never actually needed the loan, it would be hypocritical not to be equally disappointed with the Obama camp as I was with McCain’s.
Anyway, most of my thoughts on the issue are laid out in my original post, so go read that if you want more details on why I think that this is bad, but here’s the bottom line for candidates, non-profits, and anyone with an “enter your email” field:
Your email list should not be used as collateral. Mortgaging it is mortgaging your credibility. Using your email list in this way risks ruining email marketing for everyone.
November 11th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Incidentally, with a house file of 10 million addresses, Obama had the email address of almost one in five people who voted for him, and one in three of his list members were donors. His list was not just big, it was high quality.
And maybe that’s why this sort of thing makes me so mad - when your list has been so good to you, to put it up as collateral seems awfully short-sighted.