[liberationtech] Introducing The GovLab Digest: covering innovations in Governance, delivered weekly

[Paul Ferguson]

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Speaking as a Technical Area Co-Chair for M3AAWG [1], I would like to
comment on this.

Mailchimp is a M3AAWG member company in good standing, and if you know
anything about M3AAWG, you should understand that companies which
violate the code of conduct, and do not live up to high standards of
other member companies, get ejected from M3AAWG membership. And it
does happen.

M3AAWG provides a legitimate framework for ESPs (E-Mail Service
Providers) so that they can conduct their legitimate *business* in a
ethical and moral model, provide proper opt-in/opt-out models, and
provides a legitimate and legal service to their customers.

You may not like sales & marketing e-mail services, but that does not
make them "spammers", illegal, or sketchy.

There are *real* criminals and *real* spammers, but ESPs who conduct
themselves under the auspices of the M3AAWG code of conduct are not
spammers, regardless of anyone's personal opinions on marketing e-mail.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming,

- - ferg



[1] https://www.m3aawg.org/

On 2/17/2015 10:41 AM, Rich Kulawiec wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 07:17:18PM +0100, Christian Huldt wrote:
>> Who are mailchimps.com and why should I trust them?
> 
> Spammers for hire, and no, you shouldn't -- doubly so since (like
> many such operations) they embed unique-per-recipient tracking
> links in every message they send.  Last time I checked they were
> operating over 300 domains -- e.g., mcsv94.net, mcsv95.net,
> mcsv96.net.  This is a tactic used exclusively by spammers who are
> attempt to evade domain-based blacklisting: there is absolutely no
> legitimate purpose for it.
> 
> The best way for GovLab to avoid all of this is to set up a
> Mailman instance in-house.  As Ken over at the PopeHat blog has
> astutely observed, when you outsource your email, you outsource
> your reputation.  And I'll add to that that you also surrender the
> privacy of your readers to third parties unknown to you.
> 
> That's also the best way for everyone else.  If you're trying to
> do something with a mailing list that Mailman doesn't do, there's a
> very good chance that what you're trying to do is wrong, stupid,
> silly or abusive. (Yes, Mailman is *that* good.  And it's very well
> supported by an active community.  I could use anything I want --
> or write my own -- but I use it because I think I think it's the
> best available by a wide margin.)
> 
> ---rsk
> 


- -- 
Paul Ferguson
VP Threat Intelligence, IID
PGP Public Key ID: 0x54DC85B2
Key fingerprint: 19EC 2945 FEE8 D6C8 58A1 CE53 2896 AC75 54DC 85B2
"I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to
sail forbidden seas." - Herman Melville
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