MBR IT/.NET 247 : Will .NET Alerts be able to spam you where ever you are? on ASPFriends.com 'ngfx-hailstorm' list

Will .NET Alerts be able to spam you where ever you are?

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This message was discovered on ASPFriends.com 'ngfx-hailstorm' list.
Responses highlighted in red are from those people who are likely to be able to contribute good, authoratitive information to this discussion. They include Microsoft employees, MVP's and others who IMHO contribute well to these kinds of discussions.

Phil Winstanley (VIP)

Will .NET Alerts be able to spam you where ever you are?

Recently on the microsoft.beta.netmyservices.core_services.net_alerts
newsgroup Mary Deyo asked a question regarding the use of .NET alerts and
what she called 'Broadcast Notifications'.

Here is what she said:

##

We are considering .NET Alerts for an application where large numbers
(thousands) of subscribers might routinely be receiving the same alert.

With the current design, as far as I can tell, we will have to duplicate the
notification information for each subscriber, building a separate
MsnNotification object for each.

While this isn't difficult, it seems like an inefficient use of bandwidth if

all thousand copies (differing only in the subscriber information) are going

to the same Notification server. Are there any plans to add a broadcast
capability where a list of subscribers could be included instead of just a
single subscriber per message?

Mary Deyo

##

Ashvin Naik, Microsofts .NET My Services Guru responded quickly with this:

##

Hi Mary,

Yes the Future Vesions Of Alerts will have the Broadcast capability. I am
not sure when this will happen but we are working on it.

Thank you very much for your interest in .Net My Services and Alerts SDK.
We appreciate your feedback and your comments regarding our products.

Regards

Ashvin

##

Now this in its self is not all that an unreasonable request or situation,
take for example a News service that wants to send out its *Breaking News*
to all its subscribers and they can receive it wherever they are on whatever
device they are using, which is a pretty cool use for this.

But could this be misused?

Before anyone can send you Alerts you must give them the authority to do so,
without your explicit permission to send you alerts they will not be able
to.

Though once a company has the permission they could send out Alerts to
people who have subscribed to there service which have nothing to do with
the service its self. They could promote partners products or sell
advertising alerts to other companies.

Imagine this, you subscribe to some alert from Ford letting you know when
they have mucked up tyre pressures in your car, what would be to stop them
sending you Alerts advertising Turtle Wax or a new model of car?

Will Microsoft put any kind of restrictions on the use of Alerts to stop
this happening or will they support the use of Alerts to do this?

Remember that because of the way Alerts will work with .NET My Presence,
.NET My Location and .NET My Devices the alert will go to whoever is
subscribed on whatever device, be it a mobile phone, an instant message on
Messenger or a popup on your Xbox! (With your explicit permission of course
...)

Spam is a serious problem for e-mail and everyone gets and hates it. (Well I
hope they do!)

Will Alerts fall in to the same hole?

What are peoples thoughts on the matter?

Plip.

--
Phil Winstanley.
Creations Group Limited
Web : http://www.creations-group.com
Mail : Click here to reveal e-mail address

Definition: XP

eXperience Phil.
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Reply to this message...

Geoff Taylor

----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Winstanley" <Click here to reveal e-mail address>
[Original message clipped]

This is going to be a big problem, but hopefully it won't be as big a
problem as spam is.

It really boils down to trust. When you give a company some permissions to
access you .NET My Services information, you are trusting it to an extent.
That does leave the system open to abuse. Although there are lots of things
built in to the services to prevent abuse, they can't (as far as I can tell)
prevent it completely.

I think that means there'll have to be a guarantee from some other area,
probably along the lines of the privacy policies many web sites have at the
minute. But those policies can change over time, or when a company is
bought, so even then there's potential for what I would call abuse but some
others wouldn't, such as me agreeing to a policy that they would send me one
relevant alert a week and them being bought by a company that decides to
offer other companies the opportunity to send me an alert every two minutes
for some 'unmissable' offer or other.

And sadly many of the companies involved in spam just aren't the ones likely
to stick to contractual obligations if there are any involved in production
use of .NET My Services.

I suppose what will happen is the same thing that currently happens with
email. You just won't give your permission to most companies. But with
.NET My Services you'll also be very quick to withdraw that permission if
it's abused. (Try doing that with your email!)

Geoff

--
http://www.opinionatedgeek.com/ :: Part of the solution.

Reply to this message...

Ollie Cornes

Please correct me if I am wrong... my understanding is that MS .NET Alerts
is almost entirely spam-proof. Why? Because all messages are directed via
Microsoft and each sender is authenticated, they will also have paid
Microsoft money to access the service.

I think the Alerts system only sends messages to users who have said they
are willing to accept alerts from a specific sender organisation, so again
there's more protection.

Using the example of a company being taken over by another company, I can
see a risk here that any users who gave the company (in its original
incarnation) permission to sends alerts, may receive unwanted alerts in
future. But of course as soon as Microsoft (as self-elected gatekeeper) is
informed and enough complaints accumulate, the sender may have their access
to the Alerts network terminated.

Certainly at the developer conference in London the other week, Microsoft
went to great lengths to explain that Alerts was very different from email
as the network manager (Microsoft) is involved in every message transaction
so policing is much easier. If this is not the reality of the situation, I'd
be very interested to know.

Ollie
--
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.NET Books - http://www.cornes.org/books/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Geoff Taylor" <Click here to reveal e-mail address>
To: "ngfx-hailstorm" <Click here to reveal e-mail address>
Sent: Friday, December 28, 2001 11:25 AM
Subject: [ngfx-hailstorm] Re: Will .NET Alerts be able to spam you where
ever you are?

[Original message clipped]

Reply to this message...

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