What I am trying to say (if not very well). What do people think of this feature of mailwasher. I've emailed the writer a few times for comments over the last few years and heard nothing from him. Have ISP's complained to uses using it? stopped people using it? or what?
Speaking personally, everyone I have ever come across who's mentioned the name 'Mailwasher' has had a response from me of 'fine, but NEVER EVER use the bounce feature'. This is usually greeted with a 'Oh really? I had never realised that would put me in breach of any rule.' Very likely that people who are using mailwasher's bounce feature are 'using an application feature' and are not aware of the fact that they're doing anything potentially wrong. Maybe the software needs a big dialogue box when enabling that option which states very clearly the risks. I personally think that where the use of the mailwasher bounce is detected it should become an abuse case that is handled by the security team of an ISP in the manner of any other unintentional breach of T&C - via a warning. Help documentation published on the web that users could be referred to which explains exactly why this is a problem wouldn't go amiss either. I know ISPs dont like referencing third party hosted data, but if there's demand i'd gladly write up something and put it on my site. Assuming noone has beaten me to it. Mark.