The fight on spam

[prowler1971]

Yahoo, AOL plan fee for bypassing spam filters

Okay... I know at first your saying, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" But believe me, this is a "Good Thing(tm)". Read the article.

Essentially, companies, like YOUR BANK, will be able to pay a premium to have their e-mail placed on a white list. And while I'm sure people are thinking the spammers will be able to get on there too. NOT FOR LONG! They are ACCOUNTABLE for what they send as a result of this. I'm sure complaints will NOT be handled lightly.

Comments

[clodappleleft.livejournal.com]

My biggest question with that is how does the system prevent spammers from spoofing an email address from one of the companies that paid for the service. next thing you know, you're getting certified porno email from your bank, and the bank is paying hundreds of dollars for emails they never sent.

(I think it is a good idea, but I felt the need to play a demagogue)

[bdragon.livejournal.com]

My guess is they won't use headers, but the ip address of the connecting mail server.

[prowler1971.livejournal.com]

They can white list based on IP address (as bdragon pointed out). Currently there is a system by which a custom header is created. That's been used to identify spam by spamassassin. Of course, this is fairly easily spoofable but I bet using some kind of public/private key combination they can decrease the amount of spoofing. Maybe requiring a reverse connection to verify the source is not spoofed. There are a lot of ways to verify.

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

There's a simply staggering amount of sturm und drang about this in the email community, most of it due to a combination of the initial press release openly contradicting AOL's policies, both historical and going forward, and further compounded by the press release announcing this only being covered - with a heapin' helpin' of spin - by two publications that are principally shills for the direct marketing industry. One of those publications has since published a second article, claiming AOL's 'reversal' of their original statments. This is either craptastic reporting, or else those original press releases were worded incredibly poorly, possibly both. So, no, nobody outside of AOL really has much of a clear picture what the fuck's going on, but the people who do know are good people who are going to do the right thing.

So, yeah, you're probably right, in that this is probably a Good Thing(tm).