Don't Break E-Mail To Save It

from the solutions... dept

Vipul Prakash from Cloudmark is clearly a bit biased when it comes to anti-spam filtering methods - but he still makes some good points in an essay saying that we shouldn't break email to save it. He points out that most anti-spam solutions require some change that somehow "breaks" the way email should work, and suggests that there are three rules any email system should abide by: "(1) Ability to send and receive e-mail from a stranger. (Whitelisting, payment systems, and challenge/response break this rule.) (2) Ability to send and receive pseudo-anonymous e-mail. (Domain-based authentication breaks this rule.) (3) E-mail should be free. (Payment systems break this rule.)"