You might have hell trying to convince any IT department to use anything other than PINE. They might just respond to your inquiries with: “I’ll get back to you once I decode your email.”

If I could solve the problem of giving the work to the client I’d be happy.

I’ve also had countless discussions with clients trying to convince them they should use a proper mailing service such as Mailchimp rather than send from their desktop. They just don’t consider all the issues that need to be considered and if they do, they don’t consider them to be important.

Double opt in? Unsubscribe link? Personalised mail? Pah. :(

Not everyone can say “no”, especially when it means losing a client. It’d be nice to be that idealistic, but some of us have to put food on the table.

“Principles are worth more than money.” – We’re talking about emails here, not an issue that actually matters and is going to change lives, like human rights for instance – a little perspective could help.

you should send the html file as an attachment

Many corporate mail gateways block attachments; many even block e-mails with attachments (not just the attachments).

Assuming an attached HTML file gets past the gateway, you now have to rely on the recipient’s expertise. He/she must know what to do with an attached HTML file (i.e., drag it into her browser).

You’d subject business correspondence to those obstacles and vagaries rather than send properly formatted HTML mail to people who have opted in to receive it? Where is the logic there?

…many companies and organizations rather insist on sending HTML e-mail, and not every consultant, agency, or in-house designer can say “no.”

Those companies very quickly lose my business (if they ever had it) if they do not offer a plain text alternative.

Everyone can say “no” – even if it means losing the client. Principles are worth more than money.

No HTML mail, no phishing. Fair bargain? I think so.

Not sure I agree with this. Two reasons:

1. No HTML mail means institutions like PayPal don’t send it either.

So it’d become a question of phishers making text emails that look like PayPal’s text ones.

True, you can’t hide/obfuscate the URL in text like you can in HTML, but I get the feeling your assumption is that that means people will never click a non paypal.com (or whatever institution) link. Which takes me to #2:

2. Some people will click phishing links, even if the URL is shown.

Seems to me that people who are apt to fall prey to the typical phishing scam could just as easily fall prey to it in text format.

How many people would click a link at a domain like http://www.paypal-account.com or http://www.we11sfargo.com ? I think a lot still would, especially if the link is so long that their attention is drawn away from the domain.

Stopping phishing requires email user education (example: this anti-phishing game developed by students at Carnegie Mellon). A text-only email world doesn’t replace that.