Slashdot Mirror
SpamHaus Behind .mail Top-Level Domain
securitas writes "The SpamHaus Project is the group pushing ICANN to create a new trusted-sender system and the .mail top-level domain. SpamHaus proposes that registrants under the .mail TLD would pay at least $2000 per year to and 'agree to abide by certain anti-spam mailing practices.' The interesting twist is that companies that comply with the US CAN-SPAM act - which SpamHaus opposed due to the legalization of bulk unsolicited commercial e-mail - would not be eligibile to register a .mail address.
The .mail TLD proposal was recently discussed on Slashdot."
This could probably be worded a little more clearly. Complying with the CAN-SPAM act is as easy as not doing anything at all. I think what the submitter means, correct me if I'm wrong, is the "one-shot" bulk mail that a company is allowed to send you under CAN-SPAM. Obviously, SpamHaus considers this spam, still, even though it's technically legal (I would tend to agree).
This new TLD proposal, according to their FAQ, is not aimed at stopping spam, or replacing the email infrastructure from the ground up. It's more towards legitimizing non-spam email. It may not be technically possible (not my area of expertise, I remember some nay-sayers in the last article discussion who at least sounded like they knew what they were talking about), but I still think their hearts are in the right place. Am I wrong?
I'm looking forward to the whitepaper they've promised on it.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
That's not quite correct. The SpamHaus rules wouldn't ban anyone who obeyed the CAN-SPAM act. Presumably most ordinary companies obey CAN-SPAM by refusing to do anything that vaguely resembles spamming, and they'd be just fine under the SpamHaus rules. What SpamHaus wants to do is to use a stricter definition of what constitutes spam, so that some senders who meet the terms of CAN-SPAM still wouldn't qualify.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
This is just great... create a two-tiered system with "trusted" and "untrusted" e-mail servers. Guess who will own the "trusted" servers... corporations who can afford to pay the fee!
I would like the ability to run my own servers and web sites as an individual, please. We don't need ANY system of top level domains that favor corporations over non-corporations. Find another way around the problem, please.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
Why not just create a paid whitelist (or lists) along the same lines as a dnsbl, charge companies to register and require that they abide by certain practices for being listed? What does a new TLD add other than additional ICANN bureaucracy?
I think recent innovations -- SPF being my favorite so far -- offer a lot more promise than a new TLD. But that's just me :-)
If it's not one thing it's your mother.
I certainly can't pay $2000 a year.
Nor can a lot of people, which is why this propsal will never work.
Heh one domain? You're lucky. I host 5 and handle email for all of them. I REALLY can't afford $10,000 just to provide my family with email addresses. This entire proposal is insane.
.technomancer
I have a server of my own, hosting my personal site, some sites for family and for a few charity organisations. Total income for hosting: $0. If I would need to buy another domain like this, just to be able to send mail, my costs will triple.
.mail is NOT an option if it costs more than $5!!!
I cannot afford this. Meaning I will have to close all sites.
Personally, I think SPF is the best solution so far. It may not stop spam, but at least it stops forging headers, like the headers of 99,9% of spam in my inbox are.
.sig: No such file or directory
Only the smtp server needs to have a .mail domain, right? You can host an indefinite ammount of domains for email on one server, I don't see any reason why you would need a .mail domain for every email domain.
Do you think that Yahoo! or Microsoft's Hotmail would pay that $2,000 just so people could send email from them. Would smaller free e-mail companies even be able to afford it?
.mail domain, would that stop spam? How much spam do you get already that comes from Yahoo! or Hotmail or some other free email survice.
Even if those free email places did pay for a
This would either get rid of free email or let spam live, both while closing down the small free email services. I don't like either option, we should do something else.
the only email that'll make it past everyone's spamfilters would be that from MXes in the .mail TLD. ...and those of us who can't shell out $2k/year just to have our private domain in .mail are just screwed.
Brilliant idea. While we're at it, why don't we just let ICANN authoritatively say who can and can't send mail, and be done with it? It's not like their board is captured or anything.
.@.
I'm just not getting how this proposal would do much. I read through the text of the proposal, which is written in fairly obtuse language I just couldn't quite plod through right now.