Bad ideas: From Sticky Widgets to the Spam Folder

Let’s say you run a business selling, oh, I dunno, widgets. Maybe sticky, flat widgets, printed on one side, where you peel off the back so buyers can slap them onto a laptop or a bumper.You’ve sold a lot of those widgets over the years, which means you’re sitting on a massive, valuable customer email list. You also happen to have some massive feels about politics right now. So, you decide to use that business list to fire off a huge email blast telling your customers who they should vote for.If you do that, you did bad. And you are almost certainly booking a one-way ticket to email jail.The Alternate Domain ConfessionMaybe you realized this was risky, so you decided to be "smart" and spin up an alternate domain name to send the political blast instead of using your main brand domain.Let's call that what it actually is: evidence of bad intent.When you use a burner domain for a controversial blast, you are actively displaying an unwillingness to stand behind what you’re saying. It’s an…