Your recommendation please: big volume mail solution

[Kevin Miller]

Arthur Sherman wrote:
> I posted this question in several lists and, amazingly, I got badly
> flamed. :)

Gosh, who would have imagined? <g>

> Many demanded the IP or domain to block, even threatened me to block
> my own mail servers, which never sent a spam.
> Not all though, actually some of gurus were quite understanding...
> 
> Let me clear some points here:
> 
> The services my company provides are legit spam-proof etc hosting
> services. The client turned to us for because of quality he believes
> we have in building mailers, i.e. technical expertise netto.

> Legally, he has the right to do such mailing in Israel.

Well, just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right, or should be
done.  There's lots of legal things that quite unethical.

> His mailing will be in Israel only, and has working Unsubscribe
> option - we are scrupulous about this part.

Israel only?  So it won't affect me.  But wait, I have friends in
Israel.  Can you remove anybody named Ori or Ya'acov for me?

Unsubscribe is good.  But not getting subscribed in the first place is
better.  My wife made the mistake of opting in to some list that offered
discounts on household products.  The next day she had about 100 more
spams in her inbox than previously.  Took me hours to go through and
unsubscribe her.  Most messages had dual unsubscriptions - one for that
particular product from the company selling it, and one from the
"opt-in" list so I had to read each carefully to make sure I was
actually opt-ing out of everything.  

> His DB was legally bought from legit provider, not us also. I checked
> the DB is legit here.

But does everybody in the DB actually *want* to be there?  May be
"legit" but that doesn't mean the folks in it understood what they were
signing up for.  Assuming they actually signed up and didn't just click
OK on a web page for something else and didn't notice the little
semi-hidden checkbox.

> His servers will be neither in our data center, nor in our IP range,
> as he builds his own data center, which will host his servers.

Doesn't matter where it comes from or is hosted - spam is spam.
 
> Discussing this in open forum was made in effort to openly discuss the
> business need, and find a solution to make him as least spammer as
> possible, while still allowing him the functonality he seeks.

If you're not hosting him, and he's not in your IP range and has his own
data center, then beyond building him a fast email server I don't see
how you can limit what he does with his business to minimize the
spamminess of his emails.  What's there to discuss?

> Don't you deny the business need for big email volumes?

I don't care about business needs.  That's their problem.  Some
companies have legitimate needs for big email volumes.  Yahoo for
instance.  They probably send out multi-millions of messages a day with
their yahoo groups.  Or any of a number of companies that generate their
own mailing lists based on inquiries from their own web site and such.
If they get a million requests for information a day then they have a
legitimate, legal and ethical reason for having a mail system that can
reply.  On the other hand, I have a business need to keep the junk out
of our email system.  My users have enough to do w/o having to wade
through come-ons from who knows where.

> He will become a legit "marketing"-mailing service provider in Israel.

Bummer.

> We better start thinking in this direction also, the sooner the
> better - the market demands...

Um, why?  We're all here to fight spam.  Not facilitate it.  Just
because big business wants something doesn't mean that people have to
blindly go along with it.  Last I looked, I'm the market.  I'm the one
doing the buying.  And I'm not demanding any such thing.  Matter of
fact, I'm demanding that the marketeers back off.  Not that they'll
listen to me.  They never do.  But that's why we have MailScanner.
(Thanks Julian!) 

My humble opinion is to politely tell him thanks, but no thanks.  You
may lose his business, but you'll sleep better at night.

> Thank you

Any time...

...Kevin
-- 
Kevin Miller                Registered Linux User No: 307357
CBJ MIS Dept.               Network Systems Admin., Mail Admin.
155 South Seward Street     ph: (907) 586-0242
Juneau, Alaska 99801        fax: (907 586-4500