In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I sure don't know, but I've been following this thread with great
>interest. I run a couple standard mailing lists, one for a client (an
>author) who also has a completely opt-in, outgoing-only newsletter
>available for subscription. This is newsy in nature and does not sell
>or push products although I suppose the announcement of a featured
>article in XYZ magazine could be considered a commercial. People
>subscribe via a form on the Web site, no email confirmation step is in
>place.
*That* is *not* bright.
Would you mind if I went to your website right now and subscribed
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> to your list?
You need to guard againts net-hooligans doing this sort of stuff. Believe
me, they are doing it every day of the week.
>We've sent out four newsletters to date, to about 4,000 people. There
>is a tag line on the newsletter that indicates what steps had been
>taken to be on this 'list' and likewise, to unsubscribe. The latest one
>got about 4 very ugly and vulgar responses, most likely from a spouse,
>sibling or SO using a shared email address and unaware of what the
>other half is doing.
You should _not_ assume that. You have NO REASON to assume that. The people
in question could have been forge-subscribed onto your lists by people who
were trying to annoy them.
You need to secure your subscription process.
>One threatened to report me to some blacklist or
>other and it caught me off-guard. Nothing has appeared to have come of
>it (yet) but it has me scrambling to implement a confirmation step.
Good.
>If *all* unsolicited email is spam, then one could argue the point that
>my client's newsletter could in some circumstances be considered spam.
>It's scaring me a great deal because this is *my* ISP etc which this
>goes through. I have cable access, the only game in town, and if I were
>to lose that, ugh.
>
>It's a very grey area, IMO, and probably scares legit people away from
>setting up newsletters, some that I might like to be on.
If you are going to setup a mailing list of any kind, you should understand
the basics of how to prevent it from being abused. That isn't really all that
hard to understand (or to do) so it really shouldn't scare anybody away.
-- Ron Guilmette, Roseville, California ---------- E-Scrub Technologies, Inc.
-- Deadbolt(tm) Personal E-Mail Filter demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/deadbolt/
-- Wpoison (web harvester poisoning) - demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/wpoison/
"Ping can be used offensively, and it's shipped with every windows CD"
-- Steve Atkins
