This is just in tripmela.com an online deal aggregator newsletter has decided to shut shop. This was an email which came in from Jared Blank CEO,Trip mela.
“Given all of the upheaval in the market, we’ve decided to close up shop. We’ve done everything we can, but we don’t see an end in sight to the slowing travel and advertising market, and we simply don’t have the cash to ride it out.
We’ve put the business up for sale on eBay India – we’re selling Tripmela.com, Searchmela.com and – what I think is actually most valuable – our 80,000 member opt-in email list. You can see the listing here:
http://cgi.ebay.in/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300279667102 “
It looks like first effect of recession on Dot com’s are becoming clearer and models which were based around audience aggregation and monetization via advertising will see the first ripple shaking their foundation. Lot of Action was seen in last 2 years in travel space with travelguru completely changing its model from flights to being dependent on Hotels which came from their acquisition of desiya.
It will be interesting to get commentary from other travel players like ixigo,zoomtra etc and get their reaction on impact current recession is having on their business model.
I wonder if the folks who’s e-mail ids they plan on selling will be ok with it. Anyone know the rules that are applicable in such “sellouts”?
Hi Rahul,
Good question: typically in the sale of a company, the acquiring company has the rights to the email list. We specifically had it in our privacy policy from the beginning that the email addresses could be sold.
Thanks,
- Jared
jared (at) tripmela.com
Jared,
I see you are offering the same weak response at almost every place.
The fact of the matter is that the database can only be sold as part of the company’s operations and not separately as you intend. The sale of the database is still extremely unethical, even though border line legal.