Subject: Re(3): Re(2): Spam

From: ColorNet Robin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 11:49:14 +0200

Good Morning,

I do not wish to inundate the list with daily messages but I am surprised
that the comments below come from England.

The reason is as follows, and this may help put some of my comments in
perspective

The European Community has just announced a Directive, that is to say a
decision which will progressively come into law throughout the EEC,
whereby in a number of cases the OPT IN will not only be for a specific
customer relationship, but for a blanket acceptance.

What is being done here is to transpose the OFFLINE national lists
referring to the national telephone operators - In France we have the RED
LIST which is the equivalent of unlisted numbers, and the ORANGE LIST no
bulk mail (at least in theory ;=) ).  This obliges the prospective
advertiser to ensure that a given targetted individual is not on the list.
  What is being done is to apply this and then leave the "market" to
decide who runs the lists ONLINE and to decide how much is charged for
access thereto.  Traditionnal mail order business is terrified by online
implications and is trying to lock in its advantages.

However there are intense discussions and lobbying by the different
constituencies and it is in this light that "NETIQUETTE" which is what the
IETF and peer pressure constitute, is being used as an argument which has
force of law as was seen in the Canadian judgement I quoted on this list.

There are a number of different role reversals tugging in different
directions and IMHO the implications of these need be considered.  A virus
warning is not considered unsolicited bulk e-mail, but a virus warning
which gave a free download url to a site with online advertising or
commercial opportunities could very well be considered in law as a
purchase incitation.

Electronic frontiers are becoming blurred and, again, at the risk of being
an irritant, I feel that the above merits reflection

Best regards Jonathan

ColorNet Robin a écrit:
>[email-masked] a écrit:
>>>>>> "ColorNet" == ColorNet Robin <[email-masked]> writes:
>
> ColorNet> What we are looking at here is the opportunity for the
> ColorNet> small business/small site (NOT the private individual) to
> ColorNet> "cold canvas" that is to say to engage in a marketing
> ColorNet> effort without infringing the law.
>
>And it's precisely this that has to be controlled, because the
>unrestricted use of unsolicited bulk email for this purpose has the
>potential to _completely destroy_ the utility of email.
>
>I forget the exact figures (they can probably be found on
>news.admin.net-abuse.email somewhere amongst the noise) but if only 1%
>of businesses registered in the US were to send only 1 million
>unsolicited emails once per _year_ (and this is not an exceptionally
>large mailing by current standards), then that would result in enough
>email for _every_ internet user to be getting several hundred messages
>_daily_.  In such an environment who would dare to reveal their email
>address in public?
>
>The only system that scales acceptably is to only send email to people
>who have requested it; and to use other, non-intrusive methods (such as
>the WWW) to invite such requests.
>
> ColorNet> If to send a message one must ensure that the recipient is
> ColorNet> not on the mailing black list for advertising and to do so
> ColorNet> entails paying for the "privilege" of consulting that list,
> ColorNet> and if access to that list is in the hands of mail order
> ColorNet> monopolists who, say, charge $2000 or more for access, then
> ColorNet> free competition is effectively stifled.
>
>And this is another argument against opt-out, and in favour of opt-in,
>because anyone can build up their own opt-in lists without needing to
>consult any such monopolistic organization.
 This will not necessarily be the case in future
>--
>Andrew.

---

From: Andrew Gierth <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 00:47:45 +0100

>>>>> "ColorNet" == ColorNet Robin <[email-masked]> writes:

 ColorNet> I do not wish to inundate the list with daily messages but
 ColorNet> I am surprised that the comments below come from England.

why are you surprised?

If you think there's a single "European perspective" on the problem
then you are clearly mistaken. Furthermore this is a global problem
(almost all the spam I get to my .uk addresses comes either from the
US or the Far East).

Let me tell you a little story.

A company I worked for some years ago decided to set up an email
gateway from its own internal mail system to the Internet at large in
order to communicate with its clients. As the volume of mail involved
was not especially large, this could be achieved with a modem and a
dial-up account.

A few of the company's email addresses were used in public contexts
(though only one, mine, extensively so) such as on Usenet or web
pages.  However, had all 150 or so been used in public (for example,
if a directory of employee addresses had been put on a web page for
the benefit of clients), then the amount of unsolicited email that
would have been received would have been sufficient to completely
swamp the email gateway, to saturate the dialup line 24 hours a day,
and require the expenditure of considerable time, effort and resources
in expanding the capacity of the mail gateway _for no benefit to the
company whatsoever_.

This is clearly intolerable.

 ColorNet> The European Community has just announced a Directive

We don't care.

The point we're trying to make with this draft is not "what methods
of marketing are legal", but "what methods of marketing can you use
safely without offending 90%+ of your potential customers".

 ColorNet> What is being done here is to transpose the OFFLINE
 ColorNet> national lists referring to the national telephone
 ColorNet> operators - In France we have the RED LIST which is the
 ColorNet> equivalent of unlisted numbers, and the ORANGE LIST no bulk
 ColorNet> mail (at least in theory ;=) ).  This obliges the
 ColorNet> prospective advertiser to ensure that a given targetted
 ColorNet> individual is not on the list.  What is being done is to
 ColorNet> apply this and then leave the "market" to decide who runs
 ColorNet> the lists ONLINE and to decide how much is charged for
 ColorNet> access thereto.  Traditionnal mail order business is
 ColorNet> terrified by online implications and is trying to lock in
 ColorNet> its advantages.

So if you want to fight that, then push for mandatory opt-in on the
same principle as the Austrian law; this avoids any question of "who
runs the lists" because _each_ organization that wants to do bulk
email must run its _own_ lists, and need not involve any third party.

If everyone who you're sending mail to has specifically requested that
you do so, there should be no need to consult any
externally-maintained lists.

 ColorNet> However there are intense discussions and lobbying by the
 ColorNet> different constituencies and it is in this light that
 ColorNet> "NETIQUETTE" which is what the IETF and peer pressure
 ColorNet> constitute, is being used as an argument which has force of
 ColorNet> law as was seen in the Canadian judgement I quoted on this
 ColorNet> list.

Well, that's not really a matter for this draft, the "Don't Spew" RFC
already applies.

From a netiquette point of view, unsolicited bulk email sent by SMTP
constitutes abuse of the net, and nothing we can do in this working
group can ever change that because it's a matter of maintaining the
integrity of the network.

 ColorNet> There are a number of different role reversals tugging in
 ColorNet> different directions and IMHO the implications of these
 ColorNet> need be considered.  A virus warning is not considered
 ColorNet> unsolicited bulk e-mail,

Oh it certainly is, if it really is sent in bulk.

It may not be _commercial_, but that's a purely incidental factor;
most unsolicited email is commercial simply because commercial
advertising is the biggest motivator for it, but we've also seen
political spams, religious spams, revenge spams....

Organizations like CAUCE and Euro-CAUCE have chosen the commercial
territory as their battleground purely because they see it as the
easiest way to succeed.

--
Andrew.