Mac Musings

Apple, Let My Email Go

Daniel Knight - 2002.11.14 -

One of the few reasons I signed up for a year of .mac service for $49 was because Apple has done a great job of keeping spam out of my mailbox. I now use my mac.com email address for most of my Low End Mac correspondence.

Now I wonder how much legitimate email I might be missing out on.

We run over 30 email lists where Mac users help each other out, and I started getting emails a few days ago. "Is the swap list dead?" "Why aren't I getting any list messages?" "Have I been unsubscribed?"

Curiously, these all came from mac.com email addresses. So I logged into administrative mode, checked out the swap list, and discovered that nearly every regular subscription to a mac.com address had 17 bounces, and almost all of the digest subscribers noted 6 bounces.

Other lists had similar statistics.

Apple is doing a lot more than blocking spam - it is preventing subscribers from 100% opt-in lists from receiving messages. And we can't even send a note to the lists to tell them about it, so I'm doing it here.

Apple, this is no way to make friends or keep .mac customers. It is, on the other hand, one more reason for them to consider free and low-cost alternatives to your .mac services.

If anyone at Apple is listening, this .mac customer would like you to remove the block on the 30-some emails lists Low End Mac runs. Now.

These are not spam. They are 100% opt-in lists. Subscribers have to request a subscription and then confirm it. Only subscribers may post. Only a single spam has gone out in the five years we've been running these lists, and we plugged that hole immediately.

Let your subscribers get the service they are paying for and the email they have asked for.

Thank you.