[Asrg] Email Postage (was Re: FeedBack loops)

[Steve Atkins]

On Nov 14, 2008, at 8:29 PM, David Wall wrote:

>
>> Nobody with any experience or knowledge about email would seriously  
>> suggest blocking mail solely due to lack of an SPF record or a  
>> SenderID record or a DK or DKIM signature or an S/MIME signature or  
>> an X-Herring: Red header.
>
> Why is that?
>
> It's not my contention that it could be done in practice, just that  
> the ongoing "discussion" about a "new email paradigm" based on  
> pricing email, email postage, etc. as a IETF standard to thwart spam  
> might have more than a technical consideration to its implementation  
> (which doesn't mean a programming language, but how you'd get  
> millions of server and billions of users to cooperate and adopt it  
> worldwide).

Because email is, fundamentally, about people.

People want to get email from their friends, their family, their  
colleagues and their acquaintances. The vast majority also want to get  
mail from companies they've bought from or expressed an interest in  
(within reasonable constraints), organizations they're members of and  
so on. And they also want to receive serendipitous mail from strangers.

Naive blocking based on lack of SPF record, lack of DKIM signature or  
lack of X-Herring: Red header breaks that. And breaking that, breaks  
email.

The vast majority (though not quite all) ISPs understand that their  
role is to make their subscribers happy, and breaking email is not a  
good way to do that.

Cheers,
   Steve