on 5/29/2003 12:18 PM Bill Cunningham wrote: > Personally I think the best idea I've seen yet is the idea of a prefix, > such as ADV in the subject line. Using the current transfer and message-format models, that requires post-transfer processing. At a minimum, you would be legitimizing artificially increased bandwdith and processing demands (assuming that everybody complied with the law). > It maybe possible to put something like ADV in a protocol header. Or > maybe that is too extreme. A special header would be feasible if the transfer headers and message headers were separate, since you could reject the message before the transfer. The same results would also be possible with ESMTP using something like an ;ADV extension to the MAIL FROM command. Both of those require wholesale upgrades to have any impact, so in the meantime you'd still have to rely on post-transfer processing. There is another significant problem with using an ADV tag with all commercial mail, which is that it doesn't adequately distinguish between spam and legitimate commercial mail. Would upgrade notification messages for stuff like software need to be marked? Would domain renewal notices from your registrar need to be marked? Would you need to explicitly opt-in to get those messages without them being marked? Seems to me we should be defining laws that put the onus on the spammers rather than on the recipients and legitimate business communications. -- Eric A. Hall http://www.ehsco.com/ Internet Core Protocols http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/