Re: Proposed ietf.org email address policy

[Bron Gondwana <[e-mail]>]

On Sat, Jun 12, 2021, at 04:26, Toerless Eckert wrote:
> I guess whoever is in support of such email adresses could
> write an RFC, and i think it should include proposals how
> to create such a service.
> 
> I am not on top of the email business these days, but i would
> be surprised if there where no commercial email providers where
> some operationalizing option could be made to work if there was interest:
> 
> Something like:
> 
>   a) members.ietf.org Is handed over to that company (SOA, MX, whatever is needed)
>   b) provider comes up with charging model, IETF is not involved in anything.
>   c) Upon opening account, some authentication with datracker is done,
>      e.g.: open a <whatever>@members.ietf.org email account you need
>      to prove to be owner of a datatracker account.
> 
> Just one option. Maybe more interesting to IETF:
> 
>   a) During registration for IETF, one is offered to pay extra
>      for an N-month (renewal) of email-forwarding for some $XXX.
>   b) The email forard is set up via cloudflare email forwarding app,
>      given how IETF is already using cloudflare.
>   c) some good amount of $XXX is kept by IETF

I am in that business, and I expect that the small subset of IETF participants that would be willing to pay for such a service wouldn't justify a reasonable price.  I'm not sure what "some $XXX" you're imagining here, or what uptake you would expect, but the headache of setting this up and maintaining it would be unlikely to leave "some good amount" for the IETF.

Anyways, the IETF already has mail forwarding infrastructure, per the alias expanders for all the drafts.  The difference is between "a static contact address" (which I see some value in having for every RFC that can be updated or directed to the most relevant working group if the RFC is abandoned by its original authors), and an address which people might start signing up as the target for significant volumes of non-person-to-person traffic.

Bron.


--
  Bron Gondwana, CEO, Fastmail Pty Ltd
  [e-mail]