Re: [Asrg] Adding a spam button to MUAs

Douglas Otis <dotis@mail-abuse.org> Thu, 28 January 2010 18:48 UTC

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Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:48:24 -0800
From: Douglas Otis <dotis@mail-abuse.org>
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Subject: Re: [Asrg] Adding a spam button to MUAs
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On 1/28/10 9:41 AM, Michael Thomas wrote:
> On 01/28/2010 09:31 AM, John Levine wrote:
>>> Even worse, users will learn what the button means by the effect (they
>>> think) they obtain by hitting it, which may vary.
>> Web mail has had spam buttons for years, and the users seem to have
>> figured out how to use them.  Can you explain exactly how the issues
>> with a spam button in a MUA would be different?
> The entire thing strikes me as rather elitist: like only Certified 
> Spamologists(tm)
> can determine for you what you don't want to receive.
The issue whether a source issued spam or an email someone did not want 
is significantly different.  This is a greater concern for senders, and 
less so for individual recipients.  When this information is used to 
establish spam reputations used for blocking, then not describing 
auto-responses in Chinese as spam would be important.   In general, it 
would be safer to describe email marked by end users clicking "This 
is..." buttons, as only determining the message as unwanted for 
undetermined reasons, where it being spam is one possibility.  As such, 
describing the end-user button and the information obtain as 
identifying  the email as "junk" rather than as "spam" is likely to be 
more accurate from both the sender's and the law's perspective.

-Doug