[cooperation-wg] SMTP forwarding in the face of Data Protection Directive

* Alessandro Vesely:

> How is the data subject's consent acquired?  In response to the Data
> Protection Directive, operators should have defined a protocol for
> obtaining and keeping proof of the consent.  It never happened.

It seems to me that the industry has come up with a pretty widely
adopted protocol: send a probe message to the mailbox, and if that is
confirmed, include the address in the distribution list.  At this point,
the potential subscriber can also be told about list policies, including
archival of messages submitted.

> The users' advantage is to have an automatically maintained list of
> subscriptions, and a uniform interface to manage them.  Currently,
> users have to interact with what can be called a "time-distributed
> database", in the sense that monthly or yearly they may receive
> subscription reminders...

There are standardized mail headers which help to manage mailing list
subscriptions.  They are rarely used in commercial environments, though.

-- 
Florian Weimer                <fweimer at bfk.de>
BFK edv-consulting GmbH       http://www.bfk.de/
Kriegsstraße 100              tel: +49-721-96201-1
D-76133 Karlsruhe             fax: +49-721-96201-99