# Re: Mail addresses as URLs

Marc Andreessen (marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu)
Wed, 12 May 93 00:36:33 -0500

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    Date: Wed, 12 May 93 00:36:33 -0500

    From: marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)

    Message-Id: <9305120536.AA10169@wintermute.ncsa.uiuc.edu>

    To: Marc VanHeyningen <mvanheyn@cs.indiana.edu>

    Subject: Re: Mail addresses as URLs

    In-Reply-To: <7645.737183778@moose.cs.indiana.edu>

    	<9305112016.AA02577=guido@voorn.cwi.nl>

General comments...

smtp is not only cryptic but also not wholly appropriate -- one never
gets information *from* smtp the protocol, and the act of simply
firing off a mail message via the system mailer doesn't really have
anything to do with smtp anyway.

mailto is the most appropriate one I can think of -- mail should be
reserved for reading mailboxes, for if and when that becomes an issue.

It makes little sense to mangle the address into something like
mailto://ncsa.uiuc.edu/marca; what happens with nonstandard addresses
such as uunet!foobaz!bar@cs.utexas.edu or foobar%foobaz@glom.com or
some of the more cryptic addresses (e.g., gatewayed through Sprintmail
-- anyone seen one of those yet? strange stuff...) that are starting
to pop up? Sure, there can be mappings established, but why bother?

Cheers,
<a href="mailto:marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu">Marc</a>

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