Subject: [Asrg] Do-Not-Call list launch E-mails

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 15:33:32 -0500

Regardless of how desirable you think your offering is, the bottom line is that 
your "millions" of E-mails you plan to send ARE unsolicited E-mails, and thus 
ARE spam.

Accordingly they SHOULD be blocked by spam filters throughout the Net.  You do 
NOT have authority from those intended recipients to E-mail them, or to put your 
stuff in their E-mail inboxes.	

I suggest that a better solution is to publicize (through news media, etc) how 
to request being put on the list, and let Internet users contact YOU.

As a secondary question... do you intend to be cognizant of user sensitivity 
about such things and send them as plain ASCII text?  Or were you planning to 
send them as (less-compatible, 3.5x more bulky) HTML-burdened E-mail?

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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Asrg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg

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From: Daniel Feenberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 17:03:07 -0400 (EDT)

> your "millions" of E-mails you plan to send ARE unsolicited E-mails, and thus 

I think the original message was fairly clear that the messages would only
be sent to people signing up on the web page for call blocking, so they
are solicited. If AT&T were to send messages to random people asking if
they wanted the service, that would be unsolicited.

The original posting mentioned "millions of messages" because they
assume that millions of people will visit the web page to request calls be 
blocked.

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 16:44:12 -0500

On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, Daniel Feenberg <[email-masked]> wrote:
>are solicited. 

I did not see that message.  Sorry.

> If AT&T were to send messages to random people asking if

Absolutely.

>assume that millions of people will visit the web page to request calls be 

In any case, just sending out a lot of E-mail messages on an individual basis 
shouldn't result in them being blocked.  

But clearly the more personalized information they contain regarding the person 
to which each is sent (name, e-mail address, IP address and maybe the time and 
date from which they signed up for the service, etc etc) the less likely the 
E-mails will look alike and trigger spam filters.

But I'd still recommend, too, that the E-mails be sent in compact, 
compatible-with-everyone plain ASCII text, too.  :-)

I know that some recipients DO systematically filter HTML-burdened E-mail, and 
sending in plain ASCII text increases the likelihood that the mail will be 
delivered.

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From: Kee Hinckley <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 17:44:59 -0400

>your "millions" of E-mails you plan to send ARE unsolicited E-mails, and thus

Unless I misread.  Those messages are confirmation messages for 
people who asked to have their number blocked.
-- 
Kee Hinckley
http://www.messagefire.com/          Anti-Spam Service for your POP Account
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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From: "Chris Lewis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 18:59:39 -0400

> Unless I misread.  Those messages are confirmation messages for people 
> who asked to have their number blocked.

That's _exactly_ what they are.  They're just concerned that the volumes 
may be so high, people's rate limiters may go off.