If it was Chris Price then he needs a kick up the backside for creating yet more online ammunition for mailbombers.

Of course Mr Price says "instances of people signing others up without their knowledge are rare, and people can easily choose to unsubscribe" -- which is a great opinion to hold if you've never lost an email address to such an attack.

7amNews Sci/Tech CLICK HERE TO ADD THESE STORIES TO YOUR SITE

That such abuse is possible at all should be all that's required for all companies to take a responsible attitude to setting up mailing lists -- something that INL obviously don't care about.

INL's service is being provided by MessageMedia.co.nz who plainly state on their about page that they're "a joint venture between MessageMedia Inc., our parent company in the United States, eVentures NZ Ltd and NZ Post.". Now I understand why they're so willing to create yet another abusable mailing list.

A quick check with Google shows that parent company MessageMedia.com is widely considered a spamhouse -- uh oh!

That INL would team-up with a company with such pro-spam connections speaks volumes. Are INL so stupid that they didn't check out the heritage of MessageMedia and the reputation of its parent -- or do they just not care?

Perhaps someone from INL or MessageMedia might care to send in a right of reply explaining why double-opt-in wasn't used for this new service. What possible reason could there be for not acting like a responsible Net citizen and protecting others from potential abuse.

Readers Say (updated hourly) thanks for the warning Bruce... - Tom Have Your Say

If anyone doubts the ferocity of these list-based mailbomb attacks or the sheer futility associated with "unsubscribing" to 2000+ single-opt-in mailing lists then please let me know and I'm sure someone will demonstrate for you using any one of dozens of websites and software packages that make launching such attacks very simple. I suspect you might quickly become a convert to double-opt-in lists when your mailbox fills with thousands of messages that you neither asked for nor want, each and every day.

Quite frankly I'm very disappointed at the level of competence and responsibility being taken by so many companies that profess to have expertise in the field of electronic direct marketing.

So, where's ISOCNZ in all this?

We've seen the DMA come out on the side of single-opt-in mailing lists and this is the second direct-email-marketing company I've exposed (see Aardvark Daily 12 April 2001) as having strong links to pro-spam US companies -- doubtless more will pop up.

Isn't it about time that ISOCNZ, as the defacto industry spokesgroup, came out and educated business and the public to the dangers of single-opt-in mailing lists and the creation of easily abused online systems?

Now I've vented my spleen -- what do you think? send me your feedback.

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