Cohen Jumps from DMA to Bigfoot

Long-time DMA spokesman Jordan Cohen has been hired by DMA member Bigfoot Interactive to head its ISP and government relations efforts.

Cohen said the move is unrelated to the recent management shake-up, in which new president John Greco realigned the organization with a greater dedication to the Web. Those changes included the appointment of Bigfoot CEO Al DiGuido to the Ethics Policy Committee.

As the director of ISP and government relations, Cohen will build and manage Bigfoot’s ISP/government affairs program, dealing with issues relating to spam such as CAN SPAM compliance and emerging authentication/accreditation standards, spyware, corporate governance, privacy, security and deliverability. Bigfoot previously had an ISP/government affairs department but Cohen’s position is a newly-created one.

“Events in the deliverability space — like authentication, accreditation and reputation — and things like CAN-SPAM compliance on the legislative front are really moving at a very rapid pace, and are moving from concepts to widespread marketplace implementation,” Cohen said.

Cohen notes that attitudes of DMA member companies toward email have changed markedly over the past year. At the FTC Spam Forum in May 2003, there was a prevailing negative attitude toward email as a marketing medium. But at last month’s FTC E-mail Authentication Summit, the consensus was that email could be effective if certain issues were addressed, he said.

“There’s a lot of positive momentum, and a positive feeling that the spam and phishing problems are coming under control, and will be under more control very soon,” he said.