Re: Proposed EU Directive on Electronic Commerce

["Kurt Jaeger" <]

Hi!

> > 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.

Ups ? Why this ? We already have many MTAs that do *not* allow
spam. So why should we step back ?

> 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!!"

No prob, as far as I can see.

> 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 do not think that we still have spammers that insist its legal.

We have people that lobby for spammers of the first kind. As soon
as they sent their first spam, they're converted 8-)

As far as I can tell, we only have spammers of the second kind.

> 1. Strong legal backing against those that send unlabelled spam

Agreed. But this is a nice additional feature, not a requirement.
As of now it's unrealistic to assume spam will be illegal soon.

Having the flame power of the net taking care of spammers must be
enough for the foreseeable future.

-- 
MfG/Best regards, Kurt Jaeger                                  21 years to go !
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