Re: Will mailing lists survive DMARC?

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

An odd, and somewhat nasty, thought...

So far, the two organizations (at least of which I'm aware) that
have made more or less public announcements of their intentions
to use the sort of restrictive policies that cause mailing list
problems are not only large providers of email but also large
providers of online forums, social group discussions, etc.  So
are several of the other member-contributor organizations to
dmarc.org.  As far as can be observed from the outside, those
forums and discussion groups make considerable contributions to
the bottom lines of those providers -- in most cases, they allow
those organizations to sell advertising and/or to sell their
users and their interest profiles to advertisers.   Email, by
contrast, is typically a service they provide in conjunction
with those other services but is not, itself, generally a profit
center.

For many of the users and uses of the extended Internet, mailing
lists are the historical predecessor, and sometimes a
contemporary alternative, to those forums and centralized
"social network" discussions.  

If one examines those relationships, there is a case to be made
that the problems they cause to mailing lists is not "collateral
damage" at all.  Even if the effects were discovered by
accident, continued use of DMARC with restrictive policies has
the consequence of driving traffic away from mailing lists,
perhaps especially mailing lists operated by smaller providers
and non-profits, toward use of the for-profit systems operated
by those same (to quote another recent comment) "too big to
ignore" operators with a positive effect on their bottom line to
the detriment of  other operators and ways of doing things.

Behaviors by large ("dominant", "too big to ignore", etc.)
industry actors that have the effect of driving alternate
solutions or providers out by mechanisms other than fair
competition in the marketplace, especially when those mechanisms
come out of collaborations among such actors, are, if other
conditions are met, rather seriously illegal in many countries.
If intent can be demonstrated, they are even more so.

So, as a purely hypothetical set of questions (I am not
recommending anything), I wonder what would happen if some of
the people who have been claiming they or the general public are
harmed by this would, instead of asking what the IETF can do
about something that is not an IETF Standard, went to their
local "competitiveness" or "antitrust" authorities, explained
the situation and started complaining?   I also wonder whether
the IETF and ISOC have, or should seek, legal advice about how
to keep adequate distance between themselves and this situation
should some relevant jurisdiction initiate an investigation or
enforcement action.

Just curious.
    john