Paul,
unfortunately, that act of communication _is_ the adverse side effect.
it tells the spammer that yours is an active, responsive email account.
PV> that's only true from the smtp perspective. since smtp does not encode any
PV> aspect of consent, existence implies reachability.
rogue spammers are not concerned with consent. they just want to know
that you and your address are alive. feedback gives them that
informationl
PV> however, since smtp is
PV> dead meat rotting in the sun waiting for us to figure out what to replace it
ready-fire-aim. the dead meat is what the world uses today and will
continue to use for quite some time. reports of its death are just a
tad premature.
When folks agree on the new mail transfer services that we need and
when we try to add them to smtp and fail, THEN we can have productive
discussions about a replacement transfer protocol. until then, calls
for a new protocol very much constitute firing before aiming.
PV> with, smtp is not relevant in a discussion of "principles" which this claims
PV> to be. (anyone who thinks that smtp can be upgraded to encode consent needs
PV> to spend a few more years Just Hitting Delete before you can sit at the
PV> grownups table.)
And everyone else needs to move from the generic reference to
"consent" on to something that is more concrete, as well as being
integrated into a full range of human uses for email. It would be
nice to still have the baby around, after we have gotten rid of its
bath water.
d/
--
Dave Crocker <dcrocker-at-brandenburg-dot-com>
Brandenburg InternetWorking <www.brandenburg.com>
Sunnyvale, CA USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>