Re: Intent to revive "expires" header from draft-ietf-mailext-new-fields-15

Okay but why is Expires: better than Expiry-Date:? I have the  
impression that existing uses of Expires tend to do the wrong thing  
whereas uses of Expiry-Date tend to do the right thing or at least be  
benign.

Sent from my iPod

On Jul 30, 2008, at 11:33 AM, Pete Resnick <[email protected]>  
wrote:

> On 7/30/08 at 9:56 AM -0400, Keith Moore wrote:
>
>> Even if we say  that mail transport and message stores MUST NOT  
>> delete messages on the basis of this new field without recipient  
>> consent, implementors of such products will have a hard time  
>> resisting the temptation to add such a feature which seems  
>> obviously useful to them.
>
> So, I believe there is a saving grace here, and that we will be able  
> to go ahead and use "Expires:" instead of "I-Dont-think-you-want-to- 
> read-this-after:"...
>
> If, e.g., Microsoft were to implement message deletion based on the  
> "Expires:" header in, e.g., Exchange, they would immediately be sued  
> or otherwise have their heads handed to them. The reason is that  
> they will instantly cause companies to be in violation of all sorts  
> of corporate compliance laws and discovery orders. They simply can't  
> do this. The power of corporate money is much greater than user  
> complaints. So I don't think the "risk of idiocy" profile for  
> "Expires:" is nearly as bad as other features we've seen abused in  
> the past.
>
> Now, will some web mail folks who already have draconian mail  
> deletion policies use "Expires:" to start deleting that mail  
> preferentially? Maybe not, because they have better things to do  
> than to write code to search for "Expires:" and would rather just  
> delete after some hard date. If they do, then as a user, I think I'd  
> prefer them to preferentially delete "expired" messages rather than  
> others.
>
> Either way, I think the damage potential here is minimal, and the  
> gain, though also small, is reasonable for folks who want to use it.
>
> pr
> -- 
> Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
> Qualcomm Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax:  
> (858)651-1102