Re: [Asrg] MTP draft

On Tue, Mar 04, 2003 at 08:32:34PM -0700, Vernon Schryver wrote:
> Yes, but the problem with your "meeting" or "strangers" definition is
> that while in practice it devolves to "nasty bulk mail I don't want,"

Really?  I find it to be much narrower compared to other views of
unsolicited bulk.  For example, I have taken the stance that we have
no business interfering with communication between parties that know
one another and are open to communication, and as is required in a
free society, the default is that they are open to communication.
(It amazes me how many people seem to think that's not true in a free
society, or forget that it is, and I'll keep debating 'em.)

Most of the people who I have seen define UBE have said they feel
a company should not be able to mail you after you buy something
from them.   While I have been annoyed by such mail as much as anybody,
it is small volume, and always resolves itself, and the market has
capacity to deal with it on its own.

Or do people here believe it would be appropriate for the IETF to
attempt to solve hypothetical spam problems that aren't a concern as
yet, and are currently resolving themselves, but we worry could go
bad in the future?

Some people approach spam thinking the problem is they got an annoying
mail in their e-mail box.   I do not believe it is appropriate to
modify protocols or make laws to protect people from minor annoyance.
I view the occasional annoyances as part of the price of free and
open protocols and societies.

I see the main aspects of the spam problem as fourfold:
    a) Our mailboxes get so full of spam it seriously hurts their
       utility.
    b) Our mail servers undergo significantly extra load
    c) People become afraid to disclose their E-mail addresses in
       public, in newsgroup postings etc.
    d) Sites face a large burden about dealing with both true and false
       complaints about spam originating from their network.

Do people have more aspects to add -- aspects that are at this scale
of seriousness?   There are other minor things, but frankly I think if
we could solve the above 4 we would go home very happy people.

> than "unsolicited bulk."  Having your badge caught by a camera while
> someone wearing it is standing on the edge of a trade show booth's
> carpet would count as a "meeting."  (Ever loan or borrow a conference

Yes, but do you seriously think this is a likely scenerio?  I'm
really only concerned with things that are demonstrably taking place
and ready to cause a major problem.   We're not here to fix my emailbox
or your emailbox, but to fix a problem that is attacking the net
itself.

We're talking about doing that by modifying, and in many cases
restricting formerly open protocols.   Sometimes that means simply
securing the protocols which is good, but other times it means
deliberately removing features that people have found valuable.

That's a big step for the IETF.

> No, your party invites are still not UBE, because they're not
> unsolicited.  I can prove that by asking all of yoru targets if
> your mail was unsolicited junk they didn't want.

Actually, because so many people do "just say 'd'" to spam, it's
actually quite possible that the messages are of no interest to some
of the recipients, but since it's just a few a year it would be more
bother than it's worth to get off them.  

The key is, I should never, ever be afraid I am violating the rules
to mail people I have personally met.  Even unsolicited.  Again,
there simply is not a big problem in mailboxes flooded by mail from
people you know.  It doesn't exist.  We should not attempt to fix
it!

> I suspect instead that you've heard a lot of disagreement from relatively
> few who like to fight or "LART" or count coup on spammers more than
> they want to stop spam.  To that end they define spam as "any mail I
> can LART".

I will agree there are some highly polarized elements in the anti-spam
community.   Which is why, again, I think the best approach is to
find a definition that everybody can agree is 100% spam, so nobody
has misgivings about applying it to block mail.

> 
> to what I should have to deal with.  It's not a big deal to look at
> a few 100 web pages in a day.  Should I expect to have to unsubscribe
> to 5,000 streams of spam, 1 for each of the 50 outfits represented on
> each page?   Think about asking a product comparison outfit about
> digital cameras.  You can easily "meet" than 100 stores on a single
> web page.

You have not met every vendor on such a page, only the owner of the
page.   Again, look at what is really happening and likely to happen.

1) First of all, if you use DHCP, it's pretty hard to turn a web visit
into an E-mail address.  People _could_ build static IP to E-mail
maps but as far as I know they have not.

2) Of the 100 sites you visit in a day -- do you really visit 100 new
sites every day? -- how many are corporate sites of the sort that
might wish to send you bulk E-mail?

3) For those, even if not punishable by my spam definition, it is still
very bad PR.   I would be surprised if it's even one of them.

> That's true but irrelevant to whether the stuff is spam.  I should
> not need to hide.  If I do need to hide, then it certainly is spam!

Really?  As I noted, I give an e-mail address at many web sites.
I use a different addresse every time to track what people do with
it.  My goal is to track, and also to hide should I find one that
won't unsubscribe me quickly.   It's never been an issue except for
once with X10, long ago, and even then I got off after a few iterations, I
did not need to put a block on that E-mail alias.

To the best of my experience, it's a non-problem.

Anyway, quite often I don't want these post-buy mailings about
new versions and upgrades etc.   They just aren't a big problem.

The only way I see them becoming a problem, oddly, is if we defeated
scumbag-spam so solidly that such mailings lost their stigma.

> nebuolous.  Should you need to unsubscribe to 100 streams of spam
> after walking through a shopping mall, being seen by smart cameras in
> 100 stores, matched to the TIA database of faces to get your name,
> and then your mail address found via Google?  You'll say those are

If this becomes a problem, we will try to address it.   Again, I
ask if we should try to fix hypothetical problems here?
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