Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) K. Li
Request for Comments: 6430 B. Leiba
Category: Standards Track Huawei Technologies
ISSN: 2070-1721 November 2011
Email Feedback Report Type Value: not-spam
Li & Leiba Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 6430 Email Feedback Type: not-spam November 2011
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
In RFC 5965 [RFC5965], an Abuse Reporting Format (ARF) is defined for reporting email abuse. Currently, two feedback report types are defined that are related to the spam problem and that can be used to report abusive or fraudulent email messages:
1.1. Discussion
In some cases, the email client receives an email message that was incorrectly tagged as spam, perhaps by the email system, or accidentally by the user. The email client accepts the end user's "not-spam" report instruction, retrieves information related to the message, and reports this email as not-spam to the email operator. When the email operator receives the report, it can determine what action is appropriate for the particular message and user. (The requirement for a not-spam report type is from the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Spam Report Requirement Document [OMA-SpamRep-RD].)
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RFC 6430 Email Feedback Type: not-spam November 2011
In most cases, "not-spam" reports will probably not be taken on their own, but will be considered along with other information, analysis of the message, etc. Because different users have different needs and different views of what constitutes spam, reports from one user might or might not be applicable to others. And because users might sometimes press a "report not spam" button accidentally, immediate strong action, such as marking all similar messages as "good" based on a single report, is probably not the right approach. Recipients of "not-spam" reports need to consider what's right in their environments.
2. Feedback Report Type: not-spam
This document defines a new feedback report type, "not-spam", which extends the Email Feedback Reports specification [RFC5965].
3. Example
In the example, Joe, a pharmaceuticals sales representative, has received a message about discount pharmaceuticals. Because that is a frequent subject of spam email, the message has been marked as spam -- incorrectly, in this case. Joe has reported it as "not-spam", and this is an example of the report, shortened (the "[...etc...]" part) for presentation here. Note that the message has been signed using DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) [RFC6376] -- a good security practice as suggested in Section 8.2 of RFC 5965 [RFC5965].
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RFC 6430 Email Feedback Type: not-spam November 2011
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; s=abuse; d=example.com;
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RFC 6430 Email Feedback Type: not-spam November 2011
Hi, Joe. I got a lead on a source for discounts on pharmaceuticals, and I thought you might be interested. [...etc...] --part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary--
4. Security Considerations
All of the security considerations from the Email Feedback Reports specification [RFC5965] are inherited here. In addition, the Email Feedback Reports Applicability Statement [MARF-AS] contains important information about trust relationships and other security- and integrity-related aspects of accepting abuse feedback.
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RFC 6430 Email Feedback Type: not-spam November 2011 5. IANA ConsiderationsIANA has registered the newly defined feedback type name: "not-spam", according to the instructions in Section 7.3 of the base specification [RFC5965].
6. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Murray S. Kucherawy and Bert Greevenbosch for their discussion and review, and J.D. Falk for suggesting some explanatory text.7. References 7.1. Normative References[RFC5965] Shafranovich, Y., Levine, J., and M. Kucherawy, "An
7.2. Informative References
[MARF-AS] Falk, J., "Creation and Use of Email Feedback Reports: An
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RFC 6430 Email Feedback Type: not-spam November 2011
[RFC6376] Crocker, D., Ed., Hansen, T., Ed., and M. Kucherawy, Ed.,