RE: mailto URIs

At 10:24 AM -0700 6/20/05, Larry Masinter wrote:
>(URIC-encoded) 'addr-spec' is reliable
>(URIC-encoded) 'mailbox-list' MAY be used, but is often
>    badly implemented

This would lead to massive lack of interoperability of software that 
creates or resolves mailto: URIs. Assume that Thunderbird implements 
reading the new form, so Thunderbird users start to create mailtos 
for themselves using it on their web pages. A non-Thunderbird-user 
double-clicks on the link, their MUA launches, and malformed crap 
appears in the To: field of the new message.

I propose that breaking current MUAs is not a good idea in order to 
allow comments and lists of names in URIs. Even creating a new scheme 
would probably cause confusion, particularly if you name it something 
like 'mailto-new'. I have heard no demand for this new feature, even 
though it has been obvious for over a decade.

>What do you mean by 'insecurely'?

It would probably be easy to create "new-format" mailto: strings that 
would cause current MUAs to crash in interesting fashions.


--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

Received on Monday, 20 June 2005 17:43:50 UTC