I received an email from Return Path today announcing that they have acquired Habeas. It is also posted to the Return Path blog. No deal terms were disclosed, but there have been rumors that Habeas was shopping itself around since AdTech in the spring which were then confirmed by Des Cahill.

My gut tells me that Return Path didn't pay much for Habeas but simply took over their liabilities and customers.

It sounds like they will not be keeping any of the Habeas technology and will simply assimilate the customers and employees into Return Path - which makes lots of sense to me.

From the Return Path letter:

Today Return Path is announcing that it has agreed to acquire Habeas. We think this is an exciting day for anyone who cares about the email universe. The combination of the two leaders in email reputation management and deliverability services means more innovation for both email senders and receivers.

Of course, you are probably wondering what this means for you as a current Return Path client.

Over the next few months we will be working to transition all of the Habeas clients onto the Return Path platform. We will be keeping their client service team and training them on the Return Path tools and services. We are excited about the infusion of deliverability expertise that this acquisition brings us. While we may integrate some of the cool features from the Habeas platform, we don't anticipate a big change for current Return Path clients.

We are planning to operate both the Habeas SafeList and Sender Score Certified as two separate whitelists. If your clients are currently using both lists they may continue to do so. If you have clients who are not currently on the SafeList and would like to be, we can help you get the application process going.

What do you think about the Return Path-Habeas deal? Is this good for email reputation? With an effective monopoly on email reputation, can we expect ReturnPath to raise its prices?

Comments

Josh,

We're hardly a monopoly, though I suppose it's flattering to be called one. Most ISPs and many filters still offer their own whitelists. There are lots of other reputation services out there (SenderBase, CipherTrust, Cloudmark). There are other accreditation programs (ISIPP, Goodmail). There are lots of other tools vendors (Pivotal Veracity, Lyris). And there are lots of ESPs who do this work as well!

As for pricing, we have already announced (several months ago, before this came about) that we'd be raising prices on our whitelist sometime this year. Our receiver footprint has grown to 1.2 billion mailboxes, up almost 3x from when we got the program in 2005 from IronPort. So we are providing a TON more value for clients at basically the same price they've paid for years. This deal with Habeas doesn't change that plan one way or another.

Matt

Habeas's services have been lagging for quite some time and this was a necessary move to merge with ReturnPath.

Anyone that has demoed Habeas and then demoed ReturnPath could see this immediatley. ESP's and private vendor relationship services do alot of the same work as well, but ReturnPath stands alone as the industry leader today.

This is just an all around better scenario for the email industry to be standardized on one accedidation service.

I wouldn't put Goodmail in the class with ReturnPath for obvious reasons. Imprinting a token and offering remediation services are two different things.

-Jeff