On Fri, 7 Jan 2000, Jeremy Blackman wrote:
> In other words, still allow the list admin to subscribe anyone, since too
> many legitimate lists use it, and in the 'you joined' notice message,
> offer not only a way to unsubscribe (since often times when they get the
> unsubscribe notice, malicious users of those systems will simply
> resubscribe you) but a way to say 'regardless of what the list admin says,
> I want off this list permanently'.
> Another possibility, since I know Onelist and eGroups both store all list
> subscriptions for an address in a single account, and you can set global
> settings for yourself... why not have a setting on the account that says
> 'I want to /always/ be asked for confirmation, even if the list admin
> subscribes me manually'?
These solutions assume a few things:
* the service doesn't require an annoying registration process
to grant a user access to hir subscription preferences
(1: which currently requires a web browser that, despite aggressive
advertising, is not something all persons with an e-mail address are
guaranteed to have or want to use; 2: a user can be subscribed to an
eGroup-like list without being a registered user of the eGroups-like
service)
* the service wants to set aside space and CPU to store opt-out lists of
millions of such users (this would require dev time above and beyond
what is necessary for an eGroups-like service to be up and running and
profitable)
* that no trusted centralized opt-out service exists (spammers have
devalued the concept of opting-in to an opt-out list by hosting
their own for the purpose of harvesting valid e-mail addresses)
* that users will be willing to tolerate the effort of actively opting-
out of each undesired list, as opposed to automatically being not
subscribed when a confirmation ticket is purposefully ignored and
allowed to expire
Remember: people are generally lazy or distrustful. Too lazy to tolerate
manually opting out of every spam. Too distrustful to give their address
to Yet Another Opt-Out List that doesn't effectively decrease the amount
of spam received.
--
Michael
