Email Experience Council Partners with Iconix to Fight Email Fraud

The EEC to Use and Promote the Iconix Truemark Service

New York, NY, April 16, 2008 — The Email Experience Council (eec), the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) email marketing arm, today announced that it has partnered with Iconix, the leading provider of visual email identification solutions, and joined the more than 500 senders protected from email fraud by the Iconix^® Truemark^® service. Legitimate email messages from the ecc will now be marked with an icon and the company’s logo in the recipient’s inbox. This helps recipients instantly identify messages they care about and avoid spam and phishing attacks.

As part of the partnership with Iconix, the eec also will make the Iconix eMail ID plug-in freely available to its members and the public on its eec’s website (www.emailexperience.org).

“Email fraud is a serious problem that impacts the strength of the brand and the effectiveness of email as a communications channel,” said Jeanniey Mullen, the founder and executive chairwoman of the eec and global executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Zinio. “Not only does the Iconix service allow users to be confident about the senders of emails marked with the Truemark icon, it also builds on the industry standard email authentication that the DMA requires of its members. The eec has chosen to promote this unique technology and to verify our own emails to support a broader industry effort with companies that offer services like Iconix.”

The Iconix Truemark solution uses industry standard email authentication technologies such as Sender ID, Domain Keys, and DKIM to verify the authenticity of the message. It then takes the process a step further by checking the identification of the email sender against a list of registered senders with Iconix, Inc. Once an email has passed authentication and identification steps, a Truemark icon is displayed in the “from” column of the recipient’s inbox.

The Truemark service simultaneously protects and promotes the sender’s brand. Recipients can easily find and trust the messages they care about, which gives them the confidence to open and act upon legitimate messages, thereby improving the communication between sender and recipient while reducing the risk of email fraud.

“While email continues to be the most effective form of communication between businesses and their customers, its convenience and trustworthiness are undermined by increasingly sophisticated attacks,” said Jeff Wilbur, vice president of marketing, Iconix. “Email authentication is a basic but necessary step companies can take to protect their brand, and our service provides a visual value to that authentication. We’re thrilled to partner with the Email Experience Council to fight email fraud and to add them to our impressive list of verified senders.”

The Iconix service currently helps email users positively identify messages from hundreds of major email senders, including American Express, Barnes & Noble, eBay, Hallmark.com, Monster.com, MySpace, The New York Times, PayPal, Travelocity, and Wal-Mart.

To download the Iconix eMail ID plug-in, click here or visit http://www.emailexperience.org/resources/tools-resources-2/.

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About the Email Experience Council (eec)

The Email Experience Council (eec) (www.emailexperience.org), the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) vertical working group that is focused on the email marketing industry, is a global professional organization striving to enhance the image of email marketing and communications, while celebrating and advocating its importance in business, and its ROI value. The eec is committed to regularly conducting a broad series of email initiatives for a variety of organizations that highlight the positive impact and importance of email as a marketing tool, communications vehicle, and branding device. Additionally, eec members are setting the standards for email through Marketing Roundtables. The eec members are representatives of other trade organizations, agencies, advertisers, technology partners, clients, and companies focused on the potential of email marketing via mobile and other digital devices.

About Iconix, Inc.

Iconix, Inc. is the leading provider of trusted email identification solutions. Iconix provides the industry’s first visual eMail ID solution for businesses and consumers. The Iconix® solution enables consumers to quickly identify messages from legitimate senders, which proactively combats widespread email-based identity theft techniques, such as phishing. The Iconix® Truemark® service is the only standards-based visual authentication solution that works across various email platforms. For more information, visit www.iconix.com.

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