Re: [spfbis] Last Call: <draft-ietf-spfbis-4408bis-19.txt> (Sender Policy Framework (SPF) for Authorizing Use of Domains in Email, Version 1) to Proposed Standard

[Ted Lemon <[e-mail]>]

On Aug 21, 2013, at 7:17 AM, Patrik Fältström <[e-mail]> wrote:
> My conclusion is that a statement that nobody queries for it is false.

I am curious if the folks who did the analysis of query rates know the answers to the following questions:

1. Per unit of mail delivered (as opposed to per domain), for what percentage of delivered mail for which SPF TXT records exist do SPF RRtype records _also_ exist?   I wasn't clear on whether an attempt was made to come up with an answer to this question.

2. Per unit of mail received, for what percentage of received mail does the receiver currently issue SPF RRtype queries.

The reason I ask these questions is that the rationale for the decision made by the working group was that the data supported it, and I think that was a good rationale, but only if the data _actually_ supports it.   But I don't think that the data was analyzed on the basis of units of mail delivered, but rather on the basis of number of queries seen.

The reason I think the distinction is important is that as several people have observed, there are some heavy hitters in this discussion—Yahoo and Google, for example.   If the heavy hitters  all already publish the SPF RRtype, that might make a difference.

Actually, I just checked.   Right now, none of them seem to publish SPF RRtype records.   Yahoo doesn't even publish a TXT record containing SPF information.   An argument could be made that if we really wanted to push the adoption of SPF RRtypes, getting Google, Yahoo and Hotmail to publish SPF RRtype records would actually make it worthwhile to query SPF first, because most queries probably go to those domains.

I think the people who are pushing for a different outcome than the spfbis working group arrived at would do a lot to make their case if they could use their collective influence to get these three domain owners to publish SPF RRtype records.   This is a really easy thing to do; if it can't be done, that's a pretty clear indication that the SPF RRtype is doomed.