What you're describing, if it is indeed happening, sounds more like an
unintentional result of open relays and strange mailing list server logic.
To justify my opinion; how could this reduce Internet traffic unless the
mailing list server chose E-mails _purposely_ (not just "20 or so") for a
given mail server that had other servers "behind it" on the Internet? If
they were just out on the public Internet and the server receiving this set
of addresses were just another mail server, it would relay the messages,
yes, but at no bandwidth savings over the original MDA simply sending it
directly to the resulting host.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Long" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 1. Mail list server has 500 identical e-mails to send.
> 2. It gives that list of addresses to the mailserver, along with the
e-mail
> message.
> 3. The mailserver then contacts teh first server on teh list, says
"here's
> an e-mail message", along with a list of addresses (usually 20 or so).
> Sometimes all those addresses are on that server, somtimes not.
> 4. To stop spam, the receiver then checks the list for at least one valid
> receiver. if one is local, it delivers it and any other local mails, then
> relays the rest off to the first system in the list left over.
