Subject: Re: [Asrg] About that e-postage draft [POSTAGE]

From: Rich Kulawiec <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:12:17 -0400

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 10:09:21PM -0500, John Leslie wrote:
> (Keep in mind that mass-email isn't all spam, and there are quite a few
> mass-emailers that currently pay "vouching" services to improve their
> delivery rates.)

Yes, they do, which reflects poorly on their performance and motivation.
Having run some reasonably large mass email operations, I've found that
if you do things scrupulously right, then delivery difficulties are
infrequent, transient, and easily remedied.  The only people who need
these services (or think they need services) are (a) incompetent (b) ignorant
or (c) spammers, or (d) some combination.

I often think of these "vouching" services as the online equivalent
of an "indulgences" market --  they certainly share many attributes.

---Rsk

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From: John Levine <[email-masked]>
Date: 20 Apr 2009 13:15:19 -0000

>Yes, they do, which reflects poorly on their performance and motivation.

Most of the people who sign up for vouching services are primarily in
some business other than e-mail.  Return Path, which is the largest
vouching service these days, have full time staff that basically watch
the behavior of their vouching customers and tell them to clean up their
acts if they want to stay on the list.  Some do, some don't.

I agree it would be nice if everyone who sent mail knew what he was
doing and scrupulously kept to best practices.  Unfortunately, we
don't live on that planet, so on balance the vouching services do more
good than bad to keep people who are going to send mail doing so
reasonably responsibly.

R's,
John