[Arm-netbook] Auto-discard notification

[Philip Hands]

Henrik Nordström <henrik at henriknordstrom.net> writes:

> ons 2013-12-11 klockan 11:27 -0500 skrev Alison Chan:
>> On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 10:47 AM,  <freebirds at fastmail.fm> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > Google requires a cell phone number to register for gmail.
>> 
>> No they don't. I was able to register a new gmail address without
>> providing them my mobile number.
>
> Plus the fact that google groups are used for mailing lists do not at
> all mean that you need a gmail account to use them.

The problem I have with google groups is that they let list admins add
anyone to their lists, without any attempt to confirm that you (the
victim) wants to be on this spammers' new list.

It seems that the only way to stop them sending the spam, or report it,
involves signing up for a google account associated with the victim
address.

I have no interest in signing up every address that might be targeted
thus, just to untick the relevant box, so I instead treat all mails from
google groups as spam, which seems like the only viable alternative.

It's possible that I'm alone in doing this, but I'd suggest that until
Google do something about the rampant spam problem they cannot expect
people to receive their mail.

They could trivially fix this by sending out confirmation requests
before subscription and censuring admins who get too low a proportion of
acknowledgements to their mass-subscribes.

Perhaps Google prefers to collude with the spammers and thus apply this
not-so-subtle sign-up pressure on the victims, but that hardly seems to
be consistent with their "Do no evil" mantra.

Cheers, Phil.
-- 
|)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]    http://www.hands.com/
|-|  HANDS.COM Ltd.                    http://ftp.uk.debian.org/
|(|  10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London  E18 1NE  ENGLAND
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 835 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipermail/arm-netbook/attachments/20131212/5e7cac66/attachment.sig>