Best of the ISP-Lists

Talking About Spam and MAPS

Members of the ISP-Marketing list discuss the latest topic in Internet access, from the point of view of the Internet Service Provider.

[August 14, 2000]

On the ISP-Marketing list in August, TJ asked,

"Anyone hear about Harris suing the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) for blocking its emails? I'm surprised this didn't happen earlier. I'm not a fan of spam, but in my opinion, there are problems with the way MAPS is run."

A number of respondents backed Harris on the issue:

[WW noted] "It's nice to see Harris taking up this issue. I would very much like to see MAPS totally shut down. We all know the penalty for interfering with the delivery of postal mail, and I fully support treating email with the same protections as postal mail. The issue has nothing to do with spam, and everything to do with ISPs censoring and filtering customers' emails."

[CD added] "My understanding is that Harris has a squeaky-clean reputation for protection of consumer privacy. This isn't junk mail: the panelists have agreed to participate, and 2.7 million of these are currently being prevented from taking part in research."

[RK agreed] "I don't use MAPS. They seem quite a bit overboard. It's easier for my customers to shrug off spam than for me to have to explain to them why certain emails are not coming through. If they want email from Harris and you're not providing it, is it worth it to alienate customers?"

Others stood firmly on MAPS' side:

[JDF observed] "Every court case thus far has upheld ISPs' right to control the equipment they own. There's even proposed legislation to give ISPs more recourse against inappropriate use by spammers."

[PF added] "If 6 million people are opting in to Harris' emails and get 1 email a day, that's 2.19 billion emails a year. Say the average e-mail is 5K long-that's 10,950,000 million (10.1 million million) bytes. MAPS helps control this deluge of data by telling mass emailers to clean up the lists and make sure the mail is wanted. Most of my customers like to hear that I'm doing something to keep junk mail off their computer. And getting off the MAPS list is pretty simple: Just don't use sneaky opt-in tactics or fine print to get an email address. Harris should make the changes, and be a nice Internet company—rather than continuing to annoy ISPs because they feel the need to send junk mail."

Related Articles
An e-mail marketer discusses the business and law of spam in "Spam v. Profit."

News article: "Harris Interactive Continues Spam Battle With MAPS"

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