Autoresponders

[dbiel]

The following is taken from the FAQ regarding autoresponders

Q: Why not filter out bounces? A: Originally, SpamCop made attempts to forgive misdirected bounces messages - to reject them as evidence of spam. However, there are two factors conspiring to force us to rescind this policy. First of course, is that these misdirected messages *are* spam as we define it (Unsolicited Bulk Mail). They are objectionable to recipients and can even cause denial of service to innocent third parties. Second and more disturbing is that spammers have taken advantage of this policy, disguising their spam as bounce messages in order to avoid SpamCop. This cannot be permitted, so once again the spammers poison the well of trust and good will.

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Since an autoresponder responds to a single message, how would this fall into the catagory of bulk? Would that fact that it respondes to very message received by an individual mail box justify the bulk catagorization?

[turetzsr]

...Hmm -- good question! Personally, I treat the "bulk" part of SpamCop's requirement loosely: I treat as bulk anything I receive that appears to me to have been sent to anyone other than me. In that context, I would argue that e-mail from an autoresponder that are directed to me due to a forged "To:" header line could be treated as being bulk. But I would accept someone else deciding not to treat such as bulk because in the sense you understand the word, it is not bulk.

[agsteele]

I typically ignore auto-responses in the general run of reporting spam.

The discipline of choosing which messages to report is a good thing - it keeps me on my toes to ensure I don't report IPs which are not sources of spam or including URLs of innocent bystanders.

I know that poorly configured autoresponders are increasingly the cause of excessive junk but my feeling is that they are generally well intentioned and reporting as UBE is a trifle excessive. I know others feel differently too

Andrew

[Merlyn]

It does not have to be bulk to be spam.

[turetzsr]

It does not have to be bulk to be spam.

15514[/snapback]

...True but irrelevant to the OP, who is asking why an autoreply (which presumably goes to a specific e-mail address) would be considered by SpamCop to be bulk, per SpamCop's definition of spam.