ietf-asrg
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [Asrg] SMTP level unsubscribe

2003-08-13 07:03:20

On Fri, 2003-08-08 at 07:57, Andrew Akehurst wrote:

There is also the issue of which MTA would be responsible for 
doing this. For the simple situation where the recipient uses their
ISP's POP/IMAP servers to receive their mail, it might be relatively
easy to send consent details to that ISP's server MTA. To try and
communicate such data into other MTAs closer to the network core
would be much more difficult due to the sheer volume of data.


I see no advantage in adding a command from a different layer to
SMTP.  Variable envelope return paths work perfectly well for the
purpose Scott Nelson suggested.  Andrew Akehurst suggests that
a receiving MTA could be hacked to refuse selected messages. 

That was certainly one of the things I had in mind when I wrote
the above. The main point I was making was that it would be
utterly impractical for me (or any other e-mail user) to 
communicate my personal consent policy to every single MTA on the
planet (even assuming all MTAs supported consent policy 
enforcement, which is itself a massive assumption).

However I do still think that action at the network edge could
have a big impact on the problem as a whole and I agree with the
point you highlighted about hacking.

This
is similar to a suggestion made on a talk-radio show last week,
the show was on spam, Missouri might be rolling out a law against
return address forging.  A caller suggested adding a "bounce" button
to their MUA in addition to the "delete" button.

The pay2send MTA, which I am and havebeen working on, will use rules
to allow wanted messages in, and block all else.

In order for the MTA to be able to do this, the end user must
be able to communicate policy decisions to it, so that the MTA
knows which messages are "unwanted".

If there were a standard for expressing and communicating such
policies, it would allow any MUA to communicate policy with any
compliant MTA. Then far more people would have the benefit of
using such a system.

I'm willing to volunteer to help draft such a standard, in line
with Section 2.6 of the Consent Framework. Who wants to help?

Andrew

_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg