Friday, October 13, 2006

Who's messing with my mail?

Everyday I see mailing lists that allow uncontrolled (un)subscription. That means that all you have to do is type in your e-mail address to join/leave that list. Why is that wrong?

Because if you know a guy's address you may subscribe him to spam/porn/etc lists despite his will. You don't get much profit out of this except the fact that you make his life a little bit harder (sorting out the spam). For example I beginning to believe that someone is giving away the list address of an academic class I am attending (the teacher is a pain the neck and many of his students would like to get back at him). Also, if you know that someone is subscribed to a usefull (to him) list, you may unsubscribe him at any time, preventing him from receiving future updates and news.

It's like someone can subscribe you or rivert/cancel your subscription to a magazine or, worse, divert you bills so that you never receive them and therefore never pay them. As you can see, it IS a big deal!

All mailing lists should provide a verification link/code every time you try to add/modify/remove an entry to their system.

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