Re: [Asrg] MTP draft

[Vernon Schryver <vjs@calcite.rhyolite.com>]

> From: Brad Templeton <brad@templetons.com>

> ...
> But they didn't.  For example I might meet you at a conference and
> find you interesting.  Later I might type your name into google, find
> your e-mail address and add it to my list to invite you to my party.
> ...

You are on very thin ice, because exactly that is what many spammers
claim to justify their spam.  Their definition of "meeting at a
conference" includes finding your name on the roster, but you can't
get them to admit it.

> ...
> We are not, after all, out to stop every email we might find
> annoying ...

true, but you need a better way to distinguish your actions from
what spammers do.


> ...
> However, I am defining stranger as "somebody you voluntarily initiated
> contact with."  I think that's not subjective.  You either did or
> didn't.  Yes, it might sometimes take a bit of work to determine
> (mostly on the voluntary question) but you, yourself would never
> be in doubt.

In practice, bulk mailers will have an interesting notion of "meet."
I'm not worried about junk mail that comes from buying or registering
products on-line.   That's noisesome, but insignificant.

> The definition becomes vital because of course the system of
> punishment -- private or legal -- is based on it.   People must
> not only not have legit mail never blocked, they must never be
> even afraid to send it.  That's the chilling effect doctrine.

That is true only if you care about not chilling unsolicited bulk
mail.  I see nothing wrong with freezing it.


> If I meet you at a conference, and you say anything but "go away",
> then we are not strangers, and I know that for sure.   Yes, we
> might end up remembering things differently but we have ways in
> our systems to deal with that sort of question.

"Meet at a conference" is extremely subjective and assymetrical.  I
never remember most of the people I "meet" and conferences, because
I expect to "meet" hundreds and perhaps thousands, for various notions
of "meet."  I'm not talking about the obvious problems like giving a
talk to 2000 people and putting your address on your first slide, but
just mixing in that audience of 2000.  Many of the people I think I've
"met" wouldn't agree, and vice versa.

>                                                  What we have a
> hard time dealing with is one person saying, "You bought version 1,
> surely you were asking to be told when version 2 was out" and
> the other saying, "No, I didn't."

There are no practical problems with those cases.  In practice, you
assume that you'll be told not only about version 2 but reminded to
purchase more copies of version 1.  Buying version 1 usually involves
an explicit and unavoidable solicitation for junk mail.


> > Exactly what transactions make you other than a stranger?  How about
> > visiting a web site with an old browser that leaks mail addresses?
> > What about walking around a trade show with a name tag that has your
> > mail address?
>
> I doubt there are any browsers out there like that. 

There were.

>                                                      Anyway, if there
> were, why not?   Again, mathematically there are only a few thousands
> of companies and people who are not strangers to you, while there are
> billions who are.   That's so many orders of magnitude.

I deal with only a few companies, but I glance at a lot of web pages
when winnowing search engine results.

>                                                           If a
> simple definition cuts the numbers who might spam by this much, it's
> more than sufficient.

If that were true, then spam would not be a problem today, because
only a very few spammers generate almost all spam today.  Each of us
dealls with or "meets" far more companies and people than there are
significant spammers today.


>                        Especially combined with an unsubscribe rule.
> Such a rule would imply that if you knew 3,000 companies, you would
> at most get 3,000 unwanted mails, and probably far, far less.  That's
> 2 weeks of spam for me!

I think there are fewer than 1500 serious spammers today.  Since email
spam started, I think there have been fewer than 30,000 serious spammers.

Of course, the doomsday spam scenario is 0.1% of the ~20,000,000
companies in the U.S. (not to mention vastly more in the world) sending
you a quarterly reminder of their existence.


Vernon Schryver    vjs@rhyolite.com
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