Re: Look at these update from M$ Corporation.
On Saturday 02 August 2003 16:20, David Fokkema wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 01, 2003 at 03:52:36PM -0500, Michael D. Schleif wrote:
> > How dare you ***ASSUME*** that I am spamming you! Who are you
> > that I ought to feel compelled to jump through your hoops, simply
> > to say -- in an email -- hello ?!?!
>
> I'm very sorry you feel that way. I gather from the replies to my
> mails that other people feel that same way. Please let me elaborate
[...elaboration snipped...]
> But I have to be realistic: other people might have received a
> large amount of C-Rs in their daily mail exchange and might have
> reasons to be annoyed. I have not, so don't really see the problem.
> That might be my mistake. If so, my apologies.
I suspect it is not just a question of quantity, but also of quality.
I am a long-time supporter of the principle of C-R, but I was really
surprised how unfriendly and inconvenient some implementations can
be. True, I find most spam not merely unfriendly but hostile;
nonetheless, I think C-R systems need to be better designed to avoid
offending people and turning them against the principle.
What do I mean by well-designed? It is not a simple thing to define,
for an effective strategy will need quite a complex set of
interlinking techniques. It must be designed to work seemlessly in
today's internet, of course, but also incorporate a set of base
standards for C-R, which would allow processing in a more automated
manner, and interface with the existing or new blacklisting
databases. It can easily avoid the reciprocal bounce phenomenon, but
only if all C-R systems move to incorporate some standards. It
should additionally lay the framework for manual and automated
processing at various configurable levels. The adoption of standards
would make it worth while for client software developers to create
plugins or incorporate the response process.
It is an unpopular view, but I am convinced that, for the widest
acceptance, it should link to a locally configured client-side opt-in
system for specific classes of ad-mail (I'm trying here to
distinguish between UCE that comes form a replyable address and
carries clear descriptive headings and the usual run of spam that
does neither). It would then be difficult to object to C-R on the
grounds that it prevents "free speech", but the greater benefit is
that the option for orderly commercial activity on the internet would
exist, while the disorderly techniques (to describe spam as politely
as it has ever been done!) would become progressively less effective.
At the same time, this is likely to result in a wide public reaction
against the spammers, causing the success rate of the nastier kinds
to plummet even where they do get delivered.
Actually, this is an important argument for C-R compared to filtering
or blacklisting. Both of these merely stop what is sent, and in a way
challenge the spammers to use ever more devious methods. C-R
prevents any unreplyable mail, and the more widely it were
implemented, the more it would become economic sense to advertise to
a small willing audience rather than to a massive /dev/null.
I'm for _all_ approaches to reducing unreplyable UCE. And I want to
see an internet where I don't have to be bothered by advertisers
except when I want. And I don't want to be inconvenienced either, by
badly implemented C_R systems, or by over-zealous filtering. I think
the elimination of spam will require both approaches. Together we
can progressively erode the economics of even virtually free spam.
Once the delivery rate drops by another order of magnitude, and the
"conversion rate" too, the spammers will go and look elsewhere for an
arena - or turn into gentlemen.
Lots of words in this way OT thread, I know. But everyone else has
had a go...
--
richard
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