Subject: Re: DOC-BUG: permitted use of PRA/submitter address

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 11:51:39 +0200

On Sun, Aug 29, 2004 at 07:34:22PM -0400,
 [email-masked] <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 59 lines which said:

> * I am on vacation, and receive mail which lists my own address in
> the To: or CC: fields, and does not have any indications such as
> "Precedence: list/bulk/junk" that it is from a mailing list.  I wish
> for my filter to notify the sender that I will not be responding for
> a week.  Should I send the notification to the MAIL-FROM address, as
> I currently do, or to the PRA?

RFC 2822 and 3834 are quite clear, IMHO.

2822 :

   Resent fields are
   strictly informational.  They MUST NOT be used in the normal
   processing of replies or other such automatic actions on messages.

2822 :

   When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it
   indicates the mailbox(es) to which the author of the message suggests
   that replies be sent.  In the absence of the "Reply-To:" field,
   replies SHOULD by default be sent to the mailbox(es) specified in the
   "From:" field unless otherwise specified by the person composing the
   reply.

3834 :

   Similarly, the Sender field SHOULD NOT be used as the destination for
   automatic responses.  This field is intended only to identify the
   person or entity that sent the message, and is not required to
   contain an address that is valid for replies. 

> * I receive offensive and/or threatening mail from someone, and wish
> to complain to their administrator.  Should I complain to
> postmaster/abuse at the domain name in the PRA, as opposed to the
> domain in the From or envelope sender address?

I would say first to the postmaster/abuse at the domain name in the
From then, if there is no reply, to the one in the PRA (like people do
when they first mail the "offender" then his ISP).

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 12:37:51 -0400

>    contain an address that is valid for replies.

This is very useful information.  If it could be included in a
non-normative paragraph of the standard, I think it would avoid a lot
of mis-use of addresses.

(Incidentally, this is slightly off-topic, but is still fine to send
mail to the Return-Path, even this address might be the same as
Sender:?)

David