POP, SMTP and IMAP would seem contrary the whole idea of a public stream of email communication. The idea here is that reporters, investigators or concerned citizens can use a pubmail.io address to simply maintain public communication with a public official.
I wrote up an 'about' page here, but it's a bit lofty: https://pubmail.io/about/
I'd love it if a politician could use it, but I don't think that's going to happen in the near future, so this gives the public a tool to foce more transparency without the politicians/reps themselves having to commit to it.
It basically means, "don't be a dick, don't harass, don't spam." I'm not a big fan of laws, but I am a big fan of common sense and decency, and that's all I want.
Regardless, changing the text of that checkbox to what you mean - "I promise to refrain from being a jerk, harassing people, or spamming" - would make the question moot.
I disagree. I believe it would create for easier access to a public stream of email communication, in particular to the person who sent the email. Sure, there's an easy way to get a notification when one gets an email, but how about replying to it? If one could reply to the email from the notification email (and see the contents of the email), that would be going towards a better solution (in my opinion). But even better would be POP, SMTP, and IMAP support, for the easiest way of getting emails, checking them, sending them, replying to them, etc.
POP, SMTP, and IMAP would not remove the web access and the public viewing of all emails, it would extend what has already been created.
You can use a pubmail email address to sign up for pubmail, then check the public pubmail account to verify it.
(Or you could use Mailinator for the same purpose)
Not checking that box until "illegal" is defined. Which jurisdiction?
Also, I'm not too keen on requiring an email address to create an email address.
EDIT: and apparently, checking that box is not required to create an account.
EDIT 2: is there a way to use SMTP and POP/IMAP (i.e. use a standard email client)? If not, is this something in the works? I have a feeling this is dead in the water if you're targeting politicians without letting them use their Outlook.