Iljitsch van Beijnum <iljitsch(_at_)muada(_dot_)com> wrote:
One way would be solicited == whitelisted. Remember that this is only
necessary for bulk mail. So everyone would need to create a whitelist
of all the mailinglists and newsletters they're subscribed to.
This could be eased somewhat with something I was trying to get at
earlier. This is separate from the idea of fixing or replacing SMTP, or
other spamfighting, but what I envision is some standard format of data
about a mailing list. (MLML, for Mailing List Markup Language?) Upon
reading this in an email or on the web, the user can take some sort of
action (click, reply, etc.), whereby he would be subscribed, and his MUA
would whitelist the address the email would come from (or some other
such tag, but usually the From addy so as to enable PGP-type
authentication). Something like:
<mailingList
title="Dave's Demented Droppings"
name="ddd"
host="lists.example.com"
whitelistHeader="X-Drivel"
whitelistData="Two guys walk into a bar. A third one, ducks."
My mailing list of occasional jokes, stories, and other alleged humor.
</mailingList>
Ideally, this would set off a confirmation process. This introduces the
possibility of whitelisting the addy that the confirmation request will
come from, but if we establish a standard for transforming the listname
and host to the various admin addies needed, those can be made optional.
For instance, in the example above, I could have added
owner="dave(_at_)lists(_dot_)example(_dot_)com",
confirm="yesIWantDDD(_at_)lists(_dot_)example(_dot_)com",
or both, or let them default to ddd-owner(_at_)lists(_dot_)example(_dot_)com
and
ddd-confirm(_at_)lists(_dot_)example(_dot_)com(_dot_) Similarly, there could
be explicit or
implicit URLs for subscription control (defaulting to something like
"http://www.lists.example.com/ddd-control/";, and including possibly that
there are none for this list), and a standardized set of commands usable
via email, and possibly a standard set of web-based controls.
Of course, we would quickly see spam in this format, but that's a whole
different question.
A brief google doesn't turn up anything obviously relevant; anybody know
of any work having been done in this area?
--
David J. Aronson, Unemployed Software Engineer near Washington DC
See http://destined.to/program/ for online resume, and other info