Comment 5 for bug 708223

On Jan 26, 2011, at 07:46 PM, James Westby wrote:

>I didn't know it would be illegal in places. Are, say, bug subscriptions
>considered differently there. I can sign someone up for all the bug mail
>from Ubuntu, which will be more mail than any Launchpad mailing list, so
>I'm not sure about the ettiquette argument really holding up.

Bug subscriptions are probably not different, but OTOH, this probably could be
solved with appropriate legalese in whatever LP terms of service you have to
agree to when you first register (you'll have to deal with changed ToS for
existing users of course).

There is one important difference from the general mailing list case. Only
users who are registered with Launchpad can be subscribed to its mailing
lists. Because you can't subscribe random email addresses to LP mailing
lists, and because users must register with LP, I think you could inform them
that they are implicitly allowing opt-out when they register.

It would be only fair to allow them to opt-out of opt-out (or, er opt-into
opt-in) via an account setting. I can almost guarantee there will be LP users
for whom opt-out will elicit loud complaints.

>> Maybe we need to loosen that constraint, but what conditions should
>> apply to opt-out subscriptions? Perhaps we can inform users when they
>> sign up for Launchpad, that their emails may get subscribed to mailing
>> lists. We could make it even easier for them to opt-out, or we could
>> allow people to set something in their account that would prevent
>> someone else from subscribing them (i.e. force opt-in).
>
>This I'm not sure about. Perhaps we just change the way creating a new
>mailing list for a team, or adding someone with a team to a mailing list
>works?
>
>Instead of inviting them to go to a page to configure things, send them
>an email saying "You have been requested to join the mailing list for
>~whatever, click here to accept", and then tell them about the ability
>to unsubscribe, change the delivery email address etc. on the current
>page.

This is similar to the Mailman 'invitation' feature. When doing a mass
subscription (yes, stock MM allows for opt-out, but it's discouraged and the
legal ramifications are the site and list owners), you can instead invite the
user to the mailing list. This sends them a message with an accept token. I
don't think LP can re-use the Mailman machinery, but it shouldn't be hard to
implement.