Subject: Re: [Asrg] Community proposal alert...Vendor Proposes Open E-mail Standards To Fight Spam

From: Scott Nelson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 21:40:42 -0700

At 08:34 PM 5/2/03 -0600, Vernon Schryver wrote:
>> From: Barry Shein <[email-masked]>
>
>> ...
>> >http://computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,80902,00.html?nlid=AM
>>
>> Looks to me like a warmed over rehash of PGP signing maybe with some
>> SSL/TLS kind of stuff thrown in.
>
>Plus content labeling.
>
>> ...
>> So, apparently well-intentioned, but mostly redundant and orthogonal
>> to the actual problem it claims to have been designed for.
>
>It's as well intentioned as TrustE's other effort.  
>
>Their whitepaper got me thinking about content labelling.  Perhaps I
>now understand why it sounds wrong to me.  Let's assume that all mail
>were properly labelled as "transaction," "advertising," "non-profit,"
>"political," "personal and confidential" and any other categories you
>like.  
>
[snip happens]

I'm not even sure I'd want sender generated labels like "HTML".
If it's well defined enough to be used, then I can probably put it
on the mail myself with greater accuracy then the sender would.

So what do you think the "consent" in "consent based communication"
should mean if not consent to particular content?  

Scott Nelson <[email-masked]>
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---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 23:47:03 -0600 (MDT)

> From: Scott Nelson <[email-masked]>

> on the mail myself with greater accuracy then the sender would.

No, HTML labeling is a different kettle.  It is about a technical
format that is unrelated semantic conten of the message.  This is
demonstrated by the many HTML mail messages that can be translated to
7-bit ASCII text without most end users being able to see any difference.

Moreover, having the MUA guess about HTML is evil, dangerous, and
wrong because it tends to open security or at least privacy holes.

> should mean if not consent to particular content?  

There is always one particular context that matters, the mail sender
talking to the target.  It is practically impossible to characterize
variations of that context with content labelling such as "transactional"
vs. "advertising."  It is difficult enough to distinguish "mail sender
sending bulk mail to many targets" from "mail sender sending private
mail to one or a few targets," but it can be done if only by having
targets care notes.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]
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