Re: SPAM-less email (was If anybody wants to make something in Adabut

[Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <3E9FAA18.1040909@crs4.it>, Jacob Sparre Andersen <sparre@crs4.it> writes:

> In some countries it is illegal to send unsolicited commercial e-mail 

But most of those countries accept email from other countries, where
such laws do not exist.

> (or to make unsolicited commercial phone calls).  So if you set up your 
> mail server to reject unsigned messages with a polite comment requesting 
> that people sign their letters with a valid identifiable signature (and 
> maybe also a reference to the rules about unsolicited commercial 
> e-mail), you would be able to catch the senders of unsolicited 
> commercials and thus most likely be able to scare them from sending 
> anything to you in the first place.

You would also annoy legitimate correspondents who do not run your chosen
signature software on their favorite email system (perhaps because it is
unavailable for that platform).

If you were incompetent, you would use that software on an address
which you had subscribed to a mailing list.  I have software to
discard such challenges from clueless mailing list recipients,
some of whom send them even when my post was to a newsgroup.
If this practice were not concentrated in a few identifiable formats,
it would be worse than the "out of office" notices in response to posts.