Subject: RE: [Asrg] definition of spam (was Re: consent expression)

From: "Barclay, Robert" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 12:06:53 -0700

These discussions keep leading me back to the idea that the first step of
any attempt to implement this groups charter, at leats in its first
iteration, needs to be a decision nuetral system that conveys sufficient
information for end users to determine whether this email meets their
definition of "consent". Basically a sine qua non for any solution to spam
seems to be at least the possibility that you can accurately determine who
sent you the email, and a means for a user or system to define what types of
email they will accept from trusted and untrusted sources.
Whether or not bulk email is treated differently than one to one
communication (and I think at least in transport it should not be) the end
goal should be for end users to have control over what email gets into their
In boxes right?

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Moore [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 6:58 AM
To: Troy Rollo
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [Asrg] definition of spam (was Re: consent expression)

> So Keith's concerns about the impact of Chris's definition of consent 
> aren't particularly justified if we look at consent as the law defines it,

well, it's not clear to me what the charter means, and I don't have any
reason to believe that they had this particular context in mind when they
wrote it.

also, it's not that I inherently object to defining consent in one way or
another, but I do think that a system that effectively required prior
consent
to send mail, and enforced it, would be unfortunate if whatver solution we
came up with did not provide more flexibility than that.

I also don't believe in treating one-to-many email differently than
one-to-one
email, because it's the content of the email that the recipient cares about
rather than the number of recipients. 

Keith

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From: "Chris Lewis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 14:49:34 -0500

Barclay, Robert wrote:

> communication (and I think at least in transport it should not be) the 
> end goal should be for end users to have control over what email gets 
> into their In boxes right?

Right.  But, you're (a) conflating where the technology is placed (MTA 
versus MUA) with it being a user choice, and (b) ignoring fundamental 
differences between classes of "provider".

In (a), consider user choice implemented in the MTA, not the MUA.  Yes, 
the technology already exists to do that. It's highly beneficial - 
reduction of user bandwidth (think user on dialup line). Necessitating 
not only that scoring/marking/whatever goes on in the MTA, the refusal 
itself is done in the MTA.

In (b), consider us.  We're a corporation, not an ISP.  Corporate policy 
not only prohibits certain materials, but the law also forces us to 
block certain kinds of materials (specifically, workplace sexual 
harrassment legislation).  While the latter isn't spam per-se, it still 
is done using anti-spam techniques at the MTA level to prevent innocent 
end users getting bombarded by stuff they didn't ask for (which is what 
spam is).  [If non-spammed porn gets through to the end user, then it's 
an HR issue...]