Media UK sends over 12,000 emails every day. They’re double opt-in - that is, someone has to request them and then confirm their email address to say they really want the emails. And they come ‘from’ a ‘real’ email address - admin@mediauk.com - which comes into my email inbox, so I catch email bounces and customer enquiries.

However, with the advent of email auto-responders, I’m getting a lot of emails like this one:

Re: [MUK] Press News Feed: Monday 01 December 2008
Thank you for your email which has been received at the email address blah@blah.com
A reply will be sent as soon as I am able to do so.
Thank you

Why this is bad
- You’ll get more spam. You’re confirming your email address to everyone who emails you, even spammers, who use dictionary attacks to build up email lists.
- It’s not needed. In many cases I can request a ‘read-receipt’ which tells me when you read your email; or a ‘delivery-receipt’ which lets me know when it was safely delivered.
- You’re slowing the internet down. By auto-responding in this way, you’re using bandwidth that could be used for something else.
- You risk breaking the internet. What would happen if you set an auto-responder to someone who had an auto-responder? You could be playing email ping-pong all day.

What you should do with it
- 1. Switch it off.
- 2. See #1.
- 3. If you really don’t feel you can switch it off, add something like “This is an automated reply” in your email. This allows people to filter out these auto-replies if they don’t want them. But the best advice is:
- 4. Switch it off.

Thanks.

Photo: Duane Romanell. Used under licence

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