In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, you
wrote:
>
>Then what's the solution to this? We dont want to alienate anyone bringing
>over a legitiimate 50k address list, yet we should do something for
>validation when someone does....
The solution is very simple. You just do some statistical quality
control, just the same as any industrial production line would do.
Just as they pull perhaps one in every 1,000 washing machines, toasters,
circut boards, or whatever off the production line and then beat the
hell out of it (to see if it is really good) YOU should pull perhaps
one in every 1,000 addresses, at random, from some new list you are
importing, and then run an automated script to mail a short message to
each of those saying ``Did you explicitly opt-in to the XYZ mailing
list?''
For most of these, you will either get no reply whatsoever or else a
``yes, I did'' reply. You can ignore those.
However if you receive back any ``No, I didn't!'' replies, then you
know you have a problem with that list, and you should in that case
repeat the random sampling / statistical quality control procedure
again, one more time. If you still get some ``No, I didn't'' replies,
then you KNOW that you have a dirty list that some spammer is trying
to get you to send to.
This isn't rocket science. Nor is any of this a new concept. Random
sampling for statistical quality control purposes had a long history
going back at least 50 years or more. These basic (and rather obvious)
techniques are only considered new and/or revolutionary in the world
ofi selective broadcast electronic communications (e.g. via e-mail lists).
The problem isn't how to do quality control for mailing lists. The problem
is finding the corporate WILL to do it within the mailing list companies.
