The outlook for email marketing

More specifically, the direct mails, using optin lists, and bulk mailers etc etc.

There is something I have been noticing lately, please correct me if I am wrong.  The experiences are in the Indian context and e mail services available here, mostly, so aol is most likely to be excluded. The popular e mail providers are yahoo, hotmail, rediffmail, gmail and indiatimes. Lycos, excite, myway etc are not so much popular here.

What have I noticed?

The email services that I have named are tightening up against receiving any kind of bulkmail, which includes optin newsletters, offers and similar material. Rediff was always the most stringent, but now the others in the list are also following suit, with default filters against alleged spam. Even mail from  a name set to 'safe' gets filtered out if  the sender uses bulkmail. Talking from experience.

On the other hand, plenty of spam is received  in one's mail box, which comes in as 'the site's (name) offers'. Flash back to the eula at the sign up which informs you that the site collects personal info and you agree to receive offers from the site and its partners etc etc.

In other words, this means that you can spam, but after paying the gate keeper, which is the email provider. Bulk mailers are useless unless marketers and mailers work out an arrangement with respective sites and factor in those costs in their expenses.

Please contribute your views too, all. And please remember, I have excluded aol as I am from India.

Private Reply to Anand Rajadhyaksha