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RE: [Asrg] Community proposal alert...Vendor Proposes Open E-mail Standards To Fight Spam

2003-05-03 08:26:33


-----Original Message-----
From: Vernon Schryver [mailto:vjs(_at_)calcite(_dot_)rhyolite(_dot_)com] 
 
There is always one particular context that matters, the mail sender
talking to the target.  It is practically impossible to characterize
variations of that context with content labelling such as "transactional"
vs. "advertising."  It is difficult enough to distinguish "mail sender
sending bulk mail to many targets" from "mail sender sending private
mail to one or a few targets," but it can be done if only by having
targets care notes.

Combining context/content labeling with permission labeling might get
something more useful, for example:

Person to person

Transactional - implicit permission. If I buy something, it's fair for the
vendor to assume I want the email verification.
 
Bulk - explicit proven permission, usually called verified or confirmed opt
in. (I heard some strange definitions of at the FTC conference; by verified
or confirmed opt in I mean the permission level that most readers of this
list want.)

Bulk - implicit permission (previous business relationship or unverified opt
in, a.k.a. single opt in). Maybe these two should be broken out into two
categories.

Bulk - no permission

I probably left out several useful combinations. This is really just
permission labeling with a little bit of context, and some combinations are
clearly nonsense (transactional - no permission, for example).

This gives the MUA (or MTA) a short list of filters that an end user might
reasonably be willing to deal with.

We're probably stuck with the transactional messages that are also full of
ads - I don't know about you guys but almost every bill I get is stuffed
with ads of some sort.

Margaret.

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