ietf-asrg
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Re: [Asrg] 7.c Mass Mailers, reliability, and lack thereof

2003-03-27 15:09:30
On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 04:07:16PM -0500, waltdnes(_at_)waltdnes(_dot_)org 
wrote:
  There have been complaints by mass mailers about their emails not
reaching intended recipients.  Internet email to residential accounts is
not five-nines reliable today, never was in the past, and never will be.
Deal with it.

Hmm.  While I agree that current E-mail is not fully reliable, I would
disagree with the suggestion that it could not be made fully reliable and
should not be made so.   I don't believe that's the province of this research
group, but nor is it for us to say that his won't happen.

  The advertisers are *DEMANDING* that their spam^H^H^H^H "legitimate
commercial email" *NOT* be blocked.  This results in the more cynical
amongst us feeling that the "JamSpam" initiative might be better named
"JamSWpamDownYourThroat"

We have to accept that spammers, and near-spammers will indeed put their
support for selfish reasons behind principles of reliable mail delivery,
eliminating mail blockage and many of the other principles that we value
here.   Child pornographers and holocaust deniers also give their cheering
support to our free speech efforts, however that in no way is an argument
to diminish those efforts.

There actually are a significant number of legit mails that have been
blocked by anti-spam techniques.  It's real, and it's a flaw in those 
techniques,
and it is to be eliminated.  One of the classic examples was a simultaneous
mailing to hundreds of Yale (IIRC) applicants telling them they had been
accepted at Yale.  Safe to say those people wanted to get that E-mail, and
that it was a serious error for the blocking software to have discarded it,
and a more serious error to have the discard not be reported to those who would
care about it.

Stories of innocent sites improperly blacklisted are legion.

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