Re: Proposed EU Directive on Electronic Commerce

[Dave Wilson <]

>> > > > * Make them use specialised SMTP software with a SPAM FROM: greeting
> 
>> > > Have you asked what IETF thinks about this ESMTP extension?
> 
>> > They will *love* it. It will be a negated feature. If the
>> > remote site does not support spam, it will send a 50x message 8-)
> 
>> I belive that regardless how nice this sounds it probably has
>> to be that it is default to accept UCE and that UCE-blocking 
>> is something that should be implemented silently and per site
>> and/or per user unless we cant get worldwide laws that bans UCE.
> 
> Nope. The german multimedia lobby group DMMV recently suggested
> something like this and went done in flames, because, we
> do not want something described as spam to be delivered by default.
> 
> Opt-in is the way to go, not opt-out.

Woah... I see the point here. How about this:

Develop a system which allows ISPs with suitably adapted MTAs to opt to
receive spam. That same system, when encountering an old MTA, should allow
spam by default.

For those ISPs that care about the subject, upgrading their MTA should be no
big deal, and from there on it's entirely opt-in. Meanwhile, spammers won't
suddenly be faced with a network that refuses all of their spam all at once,
and so can't go running to the legislators, crying "They took away our
market!!"

>> If all mailservers suddenly just says no the spammers will revert 
>> to use "MAIL FROM" instead from a very remote site in a country
>> that permits spam..
> 
> We already have *that* -- What's the difference from today ?

None at all, you're quite right. It's exactly what we need to avoid :-)

We have two problems at the moment:

1. Spammers (and ISPs) that insist that sending spam is a legal and legitimate
form of marketing
2. Spammers that forge, relay, and hide

I don't RBL right now, it's too damaging to real traffic. However, if we take
it slowly and keep on the right side of compromise, we'll end up with:

1. Strong legal backing against those that send unlabelled spam
2. A *small* number of networks in countries that permit spam that can rather
more safely be blackholed

Not *quite* perfect, I'll grant you, but does it sound like a successful and
attainable scenario?

Dave

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