[anti-abuse-wg] Not Abuse

On Tuesday 15 August 2017 09.17, ox wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Some spammers are now sending "verify your email account" spam abuse.


I would say that sending a single unsolicited "verify your email account" IS SPAM
The keyword here is "unsolicited"

This is not the same as a mail sent as a respons to some action done, subscribe
or purchase from someone. That "verify your email account" is legitimate.

But unsolicited is always spam.


> 
> When an email address is submitted and a vendor confirms that email
> address (prior to subscribing it to a bulk mail list, etc) :
> 
> imho, sending a single (one) email to verify/confirm every 24 hour
> period - with a maximum of two verify/confirms reminders (one per 24
> hour period) - is not abuse.
> 
> But sending more than one verify/confirm email, in a single 24 hour
> period - and sending more than 3 emails in total - in any period - is
> abuse.
> 
> I know that I have used the spammer, twitter.com before as an example,
> but they are good examples to use.
> 
> Twitter.com seems to never remove their victims email addresses (and
> even ignores unsubscribe requests). Twitter.com also seems to go
> through bursts of activity and sends many confirmation emails to
> spamtraps (accounts that has never existed and only exists in stolen
> databases - i.e not real person/people) - whether criminals or third
> parties submit these fake email addresses to twitter.com or how
> twitter.com obtains these addresses are not relevant to this thread
> 
> What is relevant is: Do you agree that sending "more than 3 verify your
> email account" is abuse?
> 
> If you do not agree, what do you think that number should be? 
> 
> How many "verify your email address" and reminders to confirm, etc. is
> not abuse, in your opinion?
> 
> Like I said, I think one in 24 hours and a total of three, seems
> reasonable to me.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Andre
> 
> 

-- 
        Peter Håkanson   

        There's never money to do it right, but always money to do it
        again ... and again ... and again ... and again.
        ( Det är billigare att göra rätt. Det är dyrt att laga fel. )