Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:12:54 -0500 (CDT) From: Larry Stone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
When someone applies for games, I use mass subscribe to add them. I think it's reasonable to conclude that by applying, they have an expectation that I'll use the address they've provided to send them e-mail related to the games they've requested. Just as I'll use the phone numbers they've provided to call them and the snail mail address potentially to send them snail mail. I agree. Nobody asks for confirmed opt-in for snail mail mailings or phone calls. So why is e-mail held to a different standard? I think the question is, why is email held to a LOWER standard? For years and years (and still), if a telemarketer called you, you could say "please remove me from your list" and they had to comply. Of course some were better about it than others, but generally it worked. And the law was on your side. Now there is a do-not-call list and nearly everyone complies with it. I've had just a handful of unwanted sales calls since it began a couple years ago (not counting the 3-4 a month I get for my business, which uses my home #). It's a bit more work to get rid of junk mail but, again, the law says you have to be removed from their list if you ask. And there are some places to sign up to opt out of receiving mass mailings. Even faxes are regulated. It's illegal to send unwanted commercialfaxes. There are two differences with email: 1) there are only spotty and poorly enforced laws against junk email (in part because a lot of it is international and/or hidden) and 2) sending snail mail, faxes, or phoning all cost money--sending emails costs little to nothing, so there are exponentially more of them. I do the same thing as you do in the sense of being in charge of putting people I know personally or am local to on small lists. Unfortunately, the vast majority of unsolicited email is not small or local or personal. Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:20:04 -0700 From: Dragon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cyndi Norwitz wrote: >I really really hate having my ability to effectively run lists (or >websites or chats) curtailed because of the huge numbers of greedy jerks >out there. I realize it can't be ignored but I am hoping there could be >some middle ground. I think it really comes down to choices, which break down about like this: If you were running your own server and installed your own copy of mailman, you would be able to run it any way you wish. But then you have to maintain it. Or you could find another service provider that allows it, but they may have other issues for you to deal with (like being blacklisted). Or you can just live with the restrictions your ISP has imposed on their shared hosting system. I choose option #4: live with it while at the same time I see if newer versions can have some reasonable options and try to get my ISP to implement them. I do love my ISP and the cost is super reasonable: $10 or $20/month (depending on the plan) for email, domain name service, usenet, tons of storage, the ability to run various things on my shell/unix account, many email boxes and POP service, databases, Wordpress blogs, and as many Mailman mailing lists as I want to set up. This is just a quibble :) Cyndi ------------------------------------------------------ Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9
