EFF on Microsoft "Bonded Sender" Ironport blocking

[hank]

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/001774.php

As described here, Microsoft and Ironport seem to have taken to heart the idea that if it costs money, only rich spammers will be able to buy licenses so they Can spam -- and since governments aren't going to do it, Microsoft will assess the fees.

The article's conclusion is that this sounds bad for any nonprofit with many members who get email through Hotmail or MSN, because -- if they don't pay Microsoft/Ironport the bond in advance -- they'll be an un-bonded bulk mailer, and their mail won't be delivered to their membership who have Hotmail and MSN addresses.

I conclude that the message is that it's time to get the word out early on to people that they need to get an alternate email address, and use a different mail filter.

But is it going to be easy to distinguish Ironport from Spamcop, when Bonded Sender rolls out?

It sounds like it's going to make true what people have been mistakenly asserting for years -- "you guys aren't delivering email to my members/customers" -- and I hope it's not Spamcop's name on the ticket explaining why.

I came across the item at boingboing.net, where Cory Doctorow introduces an excerpt from the article by saying: MSFT buys spam company, sues the competition, silences political activists

My cow-orker Annalee Newitz has posted a great editorial on the latest court battles over spam, pointing out the weird, anticompetitive and anti-speech aspects of the spam fight.....

[Wazoo]

Interesting set of opinions, but .... that's pretty much what I see .. opinions and speculation. IronPort's Bonded Sender deal has been around for quite a while, that Microsoft teamed up with them recently is where the headlines came from. Without the details to back up your "cow-worker's" (?) claim that HotMail will block all this future e-mail, there's this small perception problem. Recall, that just as seen with the SpamCopDNSbl, the e-mail must be found / recognized / identified as spam to begin with. A better balanced "picture" might have been the inclusion of a link to http://www.bondedsender.com/ rather than just dropping the IronPort URL as the only reference. Just my opinion.

[Miss Betsy]

IMHO, Hotmail is not going to do anything to hurt non-profits. Though people have been wary of Microsoft or Verisign or other biggies and their plans to 'regulate' the internet in a way that brings big bucks into their pockets.

pointing out the weird, anticompetitive and anti-speech aspects of the spam fight

I don't know what the point is - spammers are very competitive. Anti-spammers are bound to be more cooperative since there is little point in being competitive and many of them are not selling anything anyway. The whole basic concept of the internet is based on cooperativeness in the first place. And there is a whole lot of competition between anti-spammers and spammers on how to stop spam with filters or evade filters.

'anti-speech' sounds like a new way of saying 'frea speech' - someone in the newsgroup, I think, said today that free speech isn't the same thing as 'required to listen'

But perhaps there is more to the story than what was posted.

Miss Betsy

[hank]

> your "cow-worker's" (?) claim

You've mistaken me for the author -- I'm not. I'm just a spamcop customer. We see people mistakenly saying spamcop is blocking their email. When Ironport and Microsoft start blocking email, and Ironport owning Spamcop, I can imagine more problems will be blamed on Spamcop.

The article is at EFF; Doctorow's mention is at boingboing.net.

[Wazoo]

You've mistaken me for the author -- I'm not.  I'm just a spamcop customer.

The lack of attribution, quoting, whatever did not make this apparent.

We see people mistakenly saying spamcop is blocking their email.  When Ironport and Microsoft start blocking email, and Ironport owning Spamcop, I can imagine more problems will be blamed on Spamcop.

And I'm not quite sure if you can actually back that premise / scenario up at present. Again, if one takes a look at the SenderBase concept, it's a "whitelist" .. not a Blocking-List.

The article is at EFF;  Doctorow's mention is at boingboing.net.

Again, the presentation did not make it clear what you were quoting, what you were adding .. I went with what I read ...

[turetzsr]

IMHO, Hotmail is not going to do anything to hurt non-profits. Though people have been wary of Microsoft or Verisign or other biggies and their plans to 'regulate' the internet in a way that brings big bucks into their pockets.

I don't know what the point is - spammers are very competitive.  Anti-spammers are bound to be more cooperative since there is little point in being competitive and many of them are not selling anything anyway.  The whole basic concept of the internet is based on cooperativeness in the first place.  And there is a whole lot of competition between anti-spammers and spammers on how to stop spam with filters or evade filters.

'anti-speech' sounds like a new way of saying 'frea speech' - someone in the newsgroup, I think, said today that free speech isn't the same thing as 'required to listen'

But perhaps there is more to the story than what was posted.

Miss Betsy

14352[/snapback]

...Well, I believe you've misunderstood what the OP (or the OP's source) meant by "anticompetitive." and "anti-speech." My guess is that "anticompetitive" was used as a synonym for "anti-free market" and that "anti-speech" was used to mean an "anti-free speech."

[Miss Betsy]

I don't see how anti-free market makes any more sense than anti-competitive.

Neither side is advocating anything else than a free market. Again, a free market does not mean that I have to buy or even listen to offers to sell any more than free speech means that I have to listen or a free press means that I have to read everything printed. The whole concept of 'free' is that given choices, people will choose what is good and necessary. The only constraint on 'free' is when one's choice infringes on or controls another's choice. So you can offer to sell as many How to be the greatest seller on eBay books; you just cannot force me to receive your ads. If you think that hurts your sales, too bad, so sad - as my daughter says. The blocklists are definitely wide open as to free market - how many blocklists are there (400 plus) - how many are actually used by anyone except the owner?

And there are too many negatives to sort out on the 'frea speach' but my point was that there is no one concerned about free speech or anti-free speech except the spammers. Anti-spam fighters are all for free speech (and on nanae, use it very freely). It is the spammers who keep bringing it up. Perhaps that is what the article is about - how weird the spammers' arguments are. One of us should read the article

Miss Betsy

[turetzsr]

I don't see how anti-free market makes any more sense than anti-competitive.

<snip>

14522[/snapback]

... <huh?> I was referring to this line of argument:

pointing out the weird, anticompetitive and anti-speech aspects of the spam fight

<snip>

I don't know what the point is - spammers are very competitive. Anti-spammers are bound to be more cooperative since there is little point in being competitive and many of them are not selling anything anyway. The whole basic concept of the internet is based on cooperativeness in the first place. And there is a whole lot of competition between anti-spammers and spammers on how to stop spam with filters or evade filters.

<snip>

from which I deduced that you thought the original quote used the word "anticompetitive" to mean "against competing against each other" or "against cooperation." Admittedly, I did not read the article but I jumped to the conclusion that the original quote meant anti-competitive (anti-free market) in terms an economist, Libertarian or Objectivist would use the word.

[turetzsr]

...Well, I just read the boingboing post from Doctorow (Boing Boing: MSFT buys spam company, sues the competition, silences political activists from which came the quote:

My cow-orker [sic] Annalee Newitz has posted a great editorial on the latest court battles over spam, pointing out the weird, anticompetitive and anti-speech aspects of the spam fight.

I see nothing in the quote from Newitz that explicitly mentions anticompetitiveness but after reading it I see no reason to change my initial understanding that Doctorow's reference was, indeed, a political/economics theory point, not one in which we should take "anticompetitive" in its "normal" meaning.

[Miss Betsy]

There is always the danger when Microsoft or any other big corporation gets in the act that they will 'charge' and make money.

I didn't see anything in either link about weird or anti-anything. The OP must have read between the lines.

However, IMHO, there is little likelihood of any legitimate non-profit being denied access to Hotmail users because they have not paid their Bonded Sender fees. Large Corporations not only would not like the flak, but like being viewed as being benevolent.

The Bonded Sender is the best (so far) scheme to make advertisers pay for advertising via email and also provide a check that excludes mass mailers who do not use confirmed subscription. There is nothing wrong with huge mailing lists. I subscribe to several retail lists myself. Other people want to know about all the deals they can get (like the ones who clip coupons offline and read grocery ads). There will certainly be accommodation for non-profits - probably no fee, but have to conform to other criteria - like having a confirmed subscription token and similar penalties.

Actually, the fee is not that bad since it is a one time fee and is only 'lost' if you don't conform to the rules. The only drawback that I can see is that spam can get through if the sender is willing to spend the bond. I am sure that there will be some sort of safeguard against the same person getting a bond again.

It will be bad for the small business unless there is some sort of sliding scale based on size. That is more the danger, IMHO, than non-profits.

Miss Betsy

[kwikone]

It will be bad for the small business unless there is some sort of sliding scale based on size.  That is more the danger, IMHO, than non-profits.

Actually, if you went to Bonded Sender you can see that there is a sliding scale (as long as you are not a non-profit with > 1,000,000 messages per month in which case you would be treated as a commercial enterprise) of application fees, annual license fees, and bond.

Kerry