On Sun, 04 Jul 2004 11:09 -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
We all have a responsibility to be a good citizens of the
internet. Anyone
("Vanity domain" owners or not) must meet their
responsibilities. Failure
to do so has consequences.
It is certain that changes that raise transaction costs for spammers (a
good thing) will raise transaction costs for responsible citizens too
(unfortunate but unavoidable). The main reasons I'm investing
so much time
in SPF right now are:
to try and influence SPF development to not raise the costs of
being a good
citizen to a prohibitive level for a significant class of domain owners
("vanity domains'');
to make sure I understand the responsibilities of good citizenship.
Well said, and very valid points.
I really dislike the term vanity domain. It implies these domains have
little or no rationale purpose. It is a small step from that term to
concluding these domains are unimportant and if SPF (or insert a new
technology here) wipes them out, well that's an acceptable level of
collateral damage. As a one man consulting company, my e-mail
address and thus my domain name are a critical element of my brand
identity. I'd like to propose we use small domain owners or
commercially hosted small domain owners as an alternative that covers
the same territory without carrying the notion of second class citizenship.
I think many people define vanity domains differently to my
previous technical (No MTA, no managed service) They forget
that many small businesses use them, though I suspect most of
those would pay a minimal charge for a complete managed
professional service. I think many people consider vanity
domains to be a fashion accessory, which many years ago they
frequently were, now they, along with email are also almost
essential, and give email mobility.
Whilst the phrase vanity domain may be now be inaccurate, it is
generally understood technically, even if it is not socially
accurate. Until a 18 months ago I didn't run a full MTA, since
I only had dialup, I have 4 domains, of which 2 are vanity
domains in the old sense though :)
Lets hope some providers see a business opportunity for
providing a complete service for all (small) domain owners that
do not have a local MTA or a ISP solution available, for a
reasonable price. Of course there will always be those netizens
not willing to "adapt", but the rules of evolution will be
slowly, and relentlessly applied.
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