Subject: [Asrg] HTML-burdened E-mail

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 12:15:13 -0500

> Unauthenticated executable content of any kind has no place in email. There
is no cause to send unsolicited and unauthenticated Java, Active-X or
Javascript. The <IMG> tag referencing an external object is causing a
programmed action I think it should be blocked by default as well.

> HTML worked and works just fine without external references or executable
content. 

> The IETF could try to issue an edict to stop HTML email but the market
simply won't listen. Issuing an RFC does not change the world. 

Again, I'm not trying to STOP  HTML-burdened E-mail, but I think it should NOT 
be the DEFAULT, especially not in cases where the features thus enabled are not 
even used in the message in question.

As for the "market listening", if we encourage recipients to establish filtering 
based on aspects of HTML, such that some notable percentage of HTML-burdened 
mail bounces or at least does not get delivered in the absence of specific 
permission authority... then I think that AOL users (for example) in similarly 
notable numbers calling their AOL Customer Support clamboring for how to send 
plain ASCII text messages would get AOL's attention, and probably result in them 
realizing what a bad idea it is to send purely gratuitous HTML by default.

AOL users don't like spam any more than the rest of us, (maybe even less!) and I 
think you'd get a lot of them jump onboard such a plan.

Gordon Peterson                  http://personal.terabites.com/
1977-2002  Twenty-fifth anniversary year of Local Area Networking!
Support the Anti-SPAM Amendment!  Join at http://www.cauce.org/
12/19/98: Partisan Republicans scornfully ignore the voters they "represent".
12/09/00: the date the Republican Party took down democracy in America.

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From: "Clayton, Nik [IT]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 13:38:52 +0100

> +1, I agree strongly.
> BTW it's even more complex now, since many legit mail-sending operations
> consider "web bugs" (1x1 pixel external IMGs with an identifying tag)
> to be good practice in measuring mail views. :(

I know of at least one large financial organisation that refuses to accept
messages containing web bugs.  If a few more large groups hopped on the
bandwagon...

N
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