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Re: DOC-BUG: permitted use of PRA/submitter address

2004-09-03 09:37:49

On Fri, 3 Sep 2004 11:51:39 +0200, Stephane Bortzmeyer
<bortzmeyer(_at_)nic(_dot_)fr> wrote:
* I am on vacation, and receive mail which lists my own address in
the To: or CC: fields, and does not have any indications such as
"Precedence: list/bulk/junk" that it is from a mailing list.  I wish
for my filter to notify the sender that I will not be responding for
a week.  Should I send the notification to the MAIL-FROM address, as
I currently do, or to the PRA?

RFC 2822 and 3834 are quite clear, IMHO.

2822 :

   Resent fields are
   strictly informational.  They MUST NOT be used in the normal
   processing of replies or other such automatic actions on messages.

2822 :

   When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it
   indicates the mailbox(es) to which the author of the message suggests
   that replies be sent.  In the absence of the "Reply-To:" field,
   replies SHOULD by default be sent to the mailbox(es) specified in the
   "From:" field unless otherwise specified by the person composing the
   reply.

3834 :

   Similarly, the Sender field SHOULD NOT be used as the destination for
   automatic responses.  This field is intended only to identify the
   person or entity that sent the message, and is not required to
   contain an address that is valid for replies.

This is very useful information.  If it could be included in a
non-normative paragraph of the standard, I think it would avoid a lot
of mis-use of addresses.

(Incidentally, this is slightly off-topic, but is still fine to send
mail to the Return-Path, even this address might be the same as
Sender:?)

David


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