You are correct, the data maintainer and the company sending out emails is often not the same. What you’re missing in this is that there may not be a direct contractual relationship between one and the other. In the commercial space there can be, and often are, multiple layers of company between the entity creating and sending the message and the company managing the SMTP service.
A few years ago I worked with a small company (who aren’t so small anymore, they’re a pretty big player now). They had a platform that let marketing agencies provide services to clients. The platform went out through another ESP. In this case, the company collecting email addresses may have been the agency or the customer of the agency. The emails were commissioned by the customer of the agency. The emails were created by the agency. The emails were sent through the ESP. The ESP has no relationship with the agency or the agency customer - their only relationship was with my client. My client had no relationship with the customer of the agency - their relationships were with the agency and the ESP. The agencies had no relationship with the actual SMTP server administrator. This isn’t that uncommon a setup where there’s multiple layers of ownership and contracts and the relationships are complicated. I’ve worked with multiple companies in this situation - usually because they run into delivery problems and need someone to come in and set up some process to manage abuse. In the above case, with the reports going back to the SMTP server administrator they are limited in their ability to take action. They can’t remove the user or block future email because they are only the API system and don’t have access to the underlying list. They can send the report to their customer who may or may not be able to unsubscribe / block mail to the complainer. The customer can then send the report to the agency who (typically) ignores it because they have no idea what to do with it. Maybe the customer can cut off the agency, but if the agency has dozens of clients, is that fair to the clients who aren’t spamming? Wrapping all of this are legal contracts and lawyers who are doing their best to protect the individual business entity. So, yes, you’re absolutely right in that it’s complicated. But often sending to the SMTP server administrator isn’t sufficient. The SMTP server administrator has no way to address the problem directly. All they can do is pass the complaint on to their customer who is also not the emailing domain owner. laura > On 13 Jan 2022, at 20:00, Scott Mutter via mailop <mailop@mailop.org> wrote: > > I think some of what's lost in this discussion - and it's true this may be > dragging the discussion off-topic, but seems as good a time as any to bring > this up. > > Often times the individual maintaining the mailing list or sending out the > emails, is not the same individual that administers and maintains the SMTP > server that's doing the actual sending out. > > Props to a mailing list administrators that actually handles unsubscribing > members that flag messages as spam or email senders that actually care about > how their messages are being treated. But this is most often, not the case. > > The person sending out the mails or mailing list often doesn't care if their > recipients are flagging messages as spam or if their messages are being > treated as spam or unsolicited. It's only until it comes to the desk of the > SMTP server administrator that the server is blocked/blacklisted that this > then becomes a problem. That's why I think it's better for mail servers to > focus their feedback loops or however else they report spam/abuse back to the > SMTP server administrator and not the emailing domain owner. > > > > On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 1:13 PM Matt Vernhout via mailop <mailop@mailop.org > <mailto:mailop@mailop.org>> wrote: > On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 1:41 AM Jay Hennigan via mailop <mailop@mailop.org > <mailto:mailop@mailop.org>> wrote: > Agreed 100%. > > A single acknowledgement of a successful unsubscribe is fine, but don't > make them jump through another flaming hoop. This goes double if the > "subscription" is the typical webinar/whitepaper spam that they never > wanted in the first place. > > In my opinion, a single reply email, "You have been unsubscribed from > xyz mailing list" is a good thing to do. > > A number of years ago while working at an ESP we tried this, sending a notice > that was along the lines of "Thank you for reporting this message as spam, we > have taken action to remove you from the mailing list and will review the > sending practices of XYZ Brand ." > > Two things happened: > > 1 - People replied in large numbers "I never reported this as spam, I want to > continue receiving these emails" - depending on the day >20% of the messages > generated this reply > 2 - People reported the reply/notification as spam. > > Needless to say it was a short-lived experiment as it just created more > support overhead for us having to undo the unsubscribe or deal with angry > customers getting calls from their subscribers. Which is actually in line > with where this whole conversation started... > > ~ Matt > > _______________________________________________ > mailop mailing list > mailop@mailop.org <mailto:mailop@mailop.org> > https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop > <https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop> > _______________________________________________ > mailop mailing list > mailop@mailop.org > https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop -- Having an Email Crisis? 800 823-9674 Laura Atkins Word to the Wise la...@wordtothewise.com (650) 437-0741 Email Delivery Blog: http://wordtothewise.com/blog
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