On 12/30/19 10:58 AM, Laura Atkins wrote:
On 30 Dec 2019, at 15:24, Keith Moore <moore(_at_)network-heretics(_dot_)com
<mailto:moore(_at_)network-heretics(_dot_)com>> wrote:
On 12/30/19 8:31 AM, Laura Atkins wrote:
30% of email addresses on a marketing list go bad every year. It
doesn’t seem that changing email addresses is that problematic.
Of course it is problematic, because any email address that is
changed for that reason cannot be used as stable contact info for use
between friends and colleagues. And this degrades the utility of email.
This has been the case since 1999.
So addressing the issue is clearly long overdue.
Of those 30%, I wonder how many of those addresses were addresses
that people intended to use as stable addresses in the first place.
I wonder how many people obtain "throwaway" addresses specifically
for the purpose of disclosing in contexts where they seem likely to
be exploited by marketers, while reserving other addresses for use
for mail that they want to get.
There has been published research on this. Which goes back to what
Dave was saying - you really need to understand what has been done
before you start proposing solutions. I have a copy of the ..pdf, but
you can search google to find it, too. The title is "ISPs and Spam:
The Impact of Spam on Customer Retention and Acquisition,"
Gartner Inc., Stamford, Conn. June 14, 1999.
Thanks for this and other references. I certainly agree that I need to
survey the literature. But it's not necessary to survey the literature
to understand that spam is a huge problem and that existing solutions
are inadequate.
(I assume this is your reference for the 30% figure also?)
But yes, I'm aware that one of the ways that people deal with spam is
by changing email addresses. If spam as experienced by ordinary
people were not so bad, causing them to change email addresses as a
way of dealing with it, email would be more useful.
In 1999, the volume of spam was a tiny fraction of what it is today.
And, yet, it was bad enough to cause 30% of people to abandon their
email addresses.
And yet, a lot has changed since 1999, so the conditions that caused 30%
of the people to abandon email addresses then may not be the same
conditions that exist now, even if that 30% figure were about the same
today as then. (but do we even know that?)
Keith
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