Subject: RE: [Asrg] ESPC Proposal

From: "Olson, Margaret" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 17:58:12 -0400

>From: Kee Hinckley [mailto:[email-masked]]
>There is one other reason that I think this is a good idea.  It will 
>let *us* (as in, the end-user population) hold them accountable for 
>their email.  I don't think they have any real idea just how much of 
>their email is unwanted.  

Being held accountable absolutely one of the goals of the ESPC proposal. We
want to be held accountable - holding senders accountable is necessary to
solving the spam problem.
 
>If they sign up for a "no spam" policy, and they make it possible to 
>easily identify who's screwing up, this make force them (unwillingly) 
>into the confirmed-opt-in situation they are trying to avoid.

We're not particularly trying to avoid confirmed opt-in. We are trying to
make it easy to identify who is sending unwanted mail. This will motivate
senders to figure out who wants their mail and who does not, by whatever
means are appropriate for their audience. From a user point of view, spam is
mail I didn't want to get, and that is based on the mail content. Marketers
are careful with their targeting off-line. They (and their email service
providers) can be and should be just as careful on-line.

A whitepaper is in the works.

Margaret Olson.
[email-masked]

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 16:57:52 -0600 (MDT)

> From: "Olson, Margaret" <[email-masked]>

> ...

> ...
> make it easy to identify who is sending unwanted mail. ...

Really?  Perhaps I can help.  Roving.com was still a noticable source
of unwanted, unsolicited, objectionable bulk mail in my filters and
traps as recently as 8 days ago.

See also
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22roving.%2Bcom%22+group%3A*abuse*

Roving.com seems to use uses other domain names for its unsolicited,
unwanted bulk mail including constantcontact.com and rs6.net.  See 
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22rs6.%2Bnet%22+group%3A*abuse*
and 
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22constantcontact.%2Bcom%22+group%3A*abuse*

Some of the long threads that Ms. Olson has triggered elsewhere can be
found with 
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22Margaret+Olson%22+group%3A*abuse*

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]
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---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 20:28:29 -0400

On Sat, Apr 26, 2003 at 05:58:12PM -0400, Olson, Margaret wrote

> From a user point of view, spam is mail I didn't want to get,
> and that is based on the mail content. Marketers are careful with
> their targeting off-line. They (and their email service providers)
> can be and should be just as careful on-line.

  *WRONG* *WRONG* *WRONG*  It's about consent, not content.  I don't
care whether you're selling porn, whether you're a religious nutcase
who's trying to save my soul, a politician who's trying to save my
country, or a business claiming it can save me a few bucks.  Unsolicited
Bulk Email (UBE for short) is the problem.  They're all alike as far as
I'm concerned.  I don't appreciate being your "target".  If I didn't
specifically opt in *AND CONFIRM* don't send it.  Which syllable in the
word "NO" do you not understand ?

-- 
Walter Dnes <[email-masked]>
Email users are divided into two classes;
1) Those who have effective spam-blocking
2) Those who wish they did
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---

From: Kee Hinckley <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 22:11:44 -0400

At 5:58 PM -0400 4/26/03, Olson, Margaret wrote:
>  >From: Kee Hinckley 
>[<mailto:[email-masked]>mailto:[email-masked]]
>Being held accountable absolutely one of the goals of the ESPC 
>proposal. We want to be held accountable - holding senders 
>accountable is necessary to solving the spam problem.

One of the things that I did *not* see in the ESPC proposal was how 
exactly you would be held accountable.  It described (in very broad 
terms) a way by which we could identify the sender.  But what 
precisely is the mechanism by which the sender is disbarred due to 
abuse?

In the past year roving.com has sent 224 messages to 172 addresses at 
somewhere.com that do not, and have never, existed.  What should I be 
doing to keep that from happening?  And how is the ESPC proposal 
going to change that?

I don't consider myself an extremist about spam.  I've had my share 
of battles with so-called spam fighters as well.  But the reactions 
I've gotten from bulkmailers have not exactly given me hope.  Take 
Topica.  We had a problem where viruses were regularly subscribing 
[email-masked] to their lists.  They "fixed it". They now 
blackhole all email from somewhere.com and ignore my complaints when 
I send mail from other domains.  They didn't bother to tell me--I 
found out when I tried to sign up for the JamSpam mailing lists 
(Topica hosted) and got no response.  That is not what I would call 
responsible behavior.

Roving presents a typical problem, similar to Topica.  We have 
customers who have most definitely been spammed by Roving.  We also 
have customers who get legitimate mail from Roving.  The fact that 
you are going to make it easier for us to identify that it's from 
Roving really doesn't help.  If you think the folks in ESPC are 
*accidentally* getting blocked, I'm afraid you're very mistaken. 
What it comes down to is how you are going to be held accountable for 
the spam.  And by that I do *not* mean that you'll have some standard 
unsubscribe mechanism.  I mean that if you get too many 
complaints--you'll lose your license to use that stamp of approval.

I know what happens to a Habeas licensee when they screw up--they get 
sued.  What happens to you?

You've got a fundamental problem.  You are trusting your users when 
they create lists.  You're at the mercy of their honesty and their 
cluefullness.  Until you realize that you can't trust them--that 
*you* need to verify those subscriptions, you are going to continue 
to get blacklisted.  Do you really think otherwise?

>A whitepaper is in the works.

A whitepaper would be nice.  A technical specification would be even 
better.  Especially if you are expecting spam filtering companies 
such as ours to recognize and whitelist your mailings.

-- 
Kee Hinckley
http://www.messagefire.com/          Junk-Free Email Filtering
http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/   Writings on Technology and Society

I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.
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