[Mailman-Users] Goodmail spells doom for mailing lists?

[Dave Crocker]

> You understand that and I understand that, but I don't think it's easy
> to grasp from the pages whose URLs you posted.  What _is_ easy to grasp
> is that bulk emailers who have been getting a certain level of QoS for
> free are now being asked to pay for it, and they're upset.  Stinks of
> "special interest" to high heaven.

Let me see if I understand the model:

AOL creates a specialized, rather expensive process that it provides for free, 
to ensure delivery of a class of mail.  The operation of this mechanism is pure 
overhead for AOL.  Worse, it is distinct to AOL.  To the extent any other 
receive-side ISP operates such a service, it is entirely independent of AOL. 
That is, anyone wanting on these special lists must to special things for each 
of these lists.

So along comes a few companies who are trying to find ways to let receive-side 
ISPs outsource the job of assuring that trustable bulk mail is, in fact, 
trusted.  (That is, the receiver wants this stuff and these services are 
provding ways to assure that they get it.)

These companies offer mechanisms that will work across multiple receive-side 
services and they all all charge the sender for the special handling that is 
needed to bypass most or all of the receive-side filters. (Just to nit-pick, EWL 
membership does not bypass all filters, while a Goodmail token will, as I 
understand it.)

So one of these services lands some strategic relationships and makes a splash 
announcing them. Somehow, this value-added service is heralded as subversive, in 
spite of the fact that pretty much all other communication services have levels 
of service.

I must be missing something, here.

Maybe it's the hyperbole.

Or perhaps it is my unwillingness to take *possible* mishandling of such a 
service as being the same as *definite* mishandling.  Perhaps it is just that I 
have yet to see a capability that was worth having that could not also be abused.

d/

-- 

Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
<http://bbiw.net>