All this debate about 'legitimate' mail services like 'returnpath'
being abused by 'sneaky' spammers. How is that possible? There should be
easy ways to prevent it. Here's a few ideas:
As soon as any whitelist service like 'returnpath' accepts
a client, they perform the following:
1) Review the client's address list - look for honeypot addresses.
If any are found, clearly the client has not vetted their list.
2) Perform their OWN 'opt-in' mailout to that list.
"Hello, we at (company eg. Retunrpath) have contracted to operate a
mailng list on behalf of (client name). They have provided your
address as one that has *requested* advertising mailouts from their
company. We respectfully request that you verify this
subscription/request by replying to this e-mail. IF you do nothing,
this will be your last mailing from this company."
I'm sure we would all live with the occasional true 'opt-in' request, if
we knew that the end result would be that it would stifle spam by giving
the legitimate mailers, the ones whose mail we *want* anyway, a better
chance to reach us.
- Charles
