In message <E0x7UDU-0002h7-00@???>, John Bolding writes:
> > Numerous reasons have already been given in this thread. Pure and
> > simply, direct delivery is far and away the best method of delivering
> > mail, by a million miles.
>
> Sure, but if direct delivery is done by a machine that is not connected
> to a static IP address 24 hours a day, then how can net abuse be handled.
> i.e. how can we make people accountable for their internet actions.
So find another way. Just because people's freedom to perform direct
delivery makes life difficult for you is no reason to compromise that
freedom. In this case it's especially bad to even consider doing so,
since direct delivery is one of the most useful parts of SMTP transport
for reasons expressed by many people in this thread.
> > There is only one way of dealing with spam in a way that doesn't
> > compromise individual freedom, and that is to provide customers with
> > individual web-controlled filters so that *they* decide what is
> > passed through to them and what is junked.
>
> This assumes that all SPAM __can__ be detected by a filter,
> that all SPAMMERS will somehow mark their SPAM so users can
> readily junk SPAM on demand. If you have such a filter, please
> share it with the rest of us.
No it doesn't. In fact it doesn't assume anything about the nature
of spam at all, and nor should it, because spam is different things
for different people, and there is nothing to distinguish spam from
fully solicited delivery other than that each customer knows whether
he has solicited an item or not. Since only the customer knows that,
and since as you say there is nothing universal that the ISP can use
to distinguish spam from not-spam, the only sensible answer is to let
customers make their own choice as to what to block.
And I'd go further than that. The law lags online practice by years
and years, needless to say, but nevertheless the similarity of some
online systems with traditional physical mechanisms is sufficiently
high that legal precedent can apply. If the postman intercepts a
person's mail and junks it on the basis that "I know it's junk", he
would very rapidly end up in the slammer. The mail is after all
addressed not to the postman, nor to the postal delivery service,
but to the addressee. It's the addressee's mail, and the carrier
has no right to junk it except under the addressee's instructions.
If you give the customer a means to specify such instructions by
choosing or customizing filters, this gives the ISP the mandate it
needs to perform such deletions. Anything else is perilously close
to interfering with somebody else's mail. In a land where litigation
seems to be a favourite passtime, I expect that ISPs will be hearing
from customers' lawyers fairly soon unless they let customers choose
what is deleted as junk mail.
A positive approach to the problem seems much more helpful to everyone
concerned, ie. the spamming "advertiser", ISP and end-recipient. Offer
customer filtering as a product feature that distinguishes your ISP
from the hoards of others. Keep counts of messages that are deleted
by customer choice, and offer this data as a free service to your
customers and as *chargeable* feedback for the advertisers and for the
targetting agencies that no doubt will be appearing. The Internet
always was a free market in the most general sense, and it's evolving
into an economic/financial free market now as well. It's pointless to
stand in front waving red flags. Before we know it, those horrible,
inconsiderate spamming monsters will be worth millions on the stock
exchange. Inevitably, everone's views on spam will have evolved as
well, and some of those shares will be under your mattress too. :-)
Rich.
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