> -----Original Message----- > From: Madscientist [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Unfortunately, the need for rich content is here to stay so HTML email > will prevail... And likely to become greater with time... I had a loooong reply (rant) to this drafted, but I reconsidered. Thank me later - this is the short version: Every "rich" HTML email I've ever seen was an ad. Most of those included trackable resources (<img src="http://www...> tags), and about half were invisible trackable resources - bugs - useful ONLY for tracking purposes or reading cookies. And a small number of HTML ads either include javascript to open additional browser windows or have other "active" content - things that I wouldn't normally allow from an untrusted source. The only other HTML email I ever see is an artifact of the default settings of certain mail programs, with absolutely no useful markup other than a single font and a couple of colors. I've even seen HTML attachments to HTML messages, essentially establishing beyond doubt that normal users completely miss the point of having HTML formatting at their disposal. Conclusion: advertisers "need" HTML formatting, normal users don't. Really. Oh, and viruses and worms like it too. > We all need to think about solutions to that problem...we won't > make it go away no matter how hard we try. Thanks to those viruses and worms, HTML formatting costs corporations and individuals billions of dollars for protection and repairs. Thanks to metered bandwidth and dialup accounts, it costs the recipients millions of dollars to see it before they delete it. Thanks to data mining and whimsical corporate policies (Yahoo!), it costs us our expectation of privacy - it is no longer possible to understand what we're telling anyone or who we're actually telling. (Why did I see a spike in car-related spam for weeks after I browsed car pricing sites? I never once gave out my email address, yet they still hit me with "targeted" messages...) If we reject HTML formatted email, and don't send any, it couldn't hurt. It may even help. If we roll over and ignore it, it will only get worse. -- Dave Salovesh RAM Associates, Inc. (800) 543-3635 Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html to be removed from this list. An Archive of this list is available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Please visit the Knowledge Base for answers to frequently asked questions: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
