problems with new web host and "too many complaints"
Greetings,
I hope this is not too OT, hopefully someone here has had a similar experience and can offer some practical advice, I'm not sure what to tell this customer at this point.
I have a customer who has a fairly large opt-in only mailman mailing list (~40,000 subscribers) that they use to send out a weekly newsletter, people seem to primarily subscribe for the weekly contest for free tickets to events. Unsubscribe links are conspicuous, and people who otherwise complain are unsubscribed from the list.
Recently, they moved their web hosting to a new service, and the new service shut down their website because they had received "too many complaints" about the newsletter, which mentions the website address. I would have thought it would be easier to follow the unsubscribe link than track down the hosting company for the website, which makes me wonder if these "complaints" are being generated by some kind of antispam software. The host forwarded a "sample" but stripped out some of the message headers, so all I can tell is that it really was in response to the newsletter.
Now the web host is talking about requiring that all of the subscribers be required to "opt in" again or be unsubscribed from the list--to be honest, that might not be a bad idea, but the customer wants to avoid this.
Has anyone else run into a situation like this and have some practical advice? They have been asking me about technical ways to circumvent the problem, but that sounds like a really bad idea to me for several reasons, I don't want to be a party to that. I'm wondering if they should just say to heck with this hosting company, but the customer is concerned that moving to yet another ISP is going to be just as painful a process as it was moving to this one, and I am not entirely sure that they wouldn't run into the same "complaint" problem with another host.
Thanks, Jonathan
On 8/30/07, Jonathan Dill wrote:
Has anyone else run into a situation like this and have some practical advice? They have been asking me about technical ways to circumvent the problem, but that sounds like a really bad idea to me for several reasons, I don't want to be a party to that. I'm wondering if they should just say to heck with this hosting company, but the customer is concerned that moving to yet another ISP is going to be just as painful a process as it was moving to this one, and I am not entirely sure that they wouldn't run into the same "complaint" problem with another host.
Well, you haven't really given us any real details as to the nature of the problem or the nature of the complaints. So, I'm not sure that anyone can give you any advice that will be useful.
I can say that I'd expect to see more support from your new ISP, and if they're willing to treat you this way this soon after you switched, I have to wonder how they're going to treat you in the future.
-- Brad Knowles brad@shub-internet.org LinkedIn Profile: http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu
Brad Knowles wrote:
Well, you haven't really given us any real details as to the nature of the problem or the nature of the complaints. So, I'm not sure that anyone can give you any advice that will be useful.
I can say that I'd expect to see more support from your new ISP, and if they're willing to treat you this way this soon after you switched, I have to wonder how they're going to treat you in the future. First, I want to say thanks to Kyle Banerjee who responded off list with a lot of great advice. To summarize the problem again, the complaints are really in response to the newsletter. The web host in question has had some bad press lately, mainly with respect to being a major source of blog comment spam, so possibly they are overreacting to compensate.
In a nutshell, it is way too easy for people to sign up for the list, which is what I have been telling them all along, but unfortunately, they had to learn this the hard way. They should include their phone number in the newsletter to give people another way to respond, since some people are paranoid about clicking on links in messages. For CAN-SPAM compliance, they should also include their postal address, which they have not been doing.
Trying to find a technical solution to the problem, such as using a different domain name in the messages, is pretty much begging to have their account terminated altogether per AUP, especially since the host's AUP is incredibly vague with respect to spam--they pretty much get to dictate whether they think it's spam or not, including requiring to ask all of the subscribers to opt-in again or be removed from the list.
Jonathan
On Aug 30, 2007, at 9:24 PM, Jonathan Dill wrote:
I have a customer who has a fairly large opt-in only mailman mailing list (~40,000 subscribers) that they use to send out a weekly newsletter,
How was the "opt-in" done? Was it done with Mailman's confirmation
process, or would it have been possible for person A to accidently
or maliciously get person B on the list? If the latter, I would
consider the list mailing unacceptable.
people seem to primarily subscribe for the weekly contest for free tickets to events. Unsubscribe links are conspicuous, and people who otherwise complain are unsubscribed from the list.
A great deal of spam contains fake unsubscribe information. Indeed
following the "unsubscribe" information in spam often gets you "opted
in" to more lists because you have proved (1) that a human actually
reads the mail sent to that address, and (2) that the human who does
read that mail is gullible.
Recently, they moved their web hosting to a new service, and the new service shut down their website because they had received "too many complaints" about the newsletter, which mentions the website address.
Obviously there are "too many" members of the list who do not believe
that they opted in to it. Why might that be?
I would have thought it would be easier to follow the unsubscribe link than track down the hosting company for the website, which makes me wonder if these "complaints" are being generated by some kind of antispam software.
You sound like someone defending "opt-out" mass mailing. I've
described above why people (correctly) avoid the opt-out instructions
in what the think might be spam.
The host forwarded a "sample" but stripped out some of the message headers, so all I can tell is that it really was in response to the newsletter.
This is normal practice to prevent the list managers from merely
engaging in "list washing" (removing the complainers while continuing
to send the spam to many people who never really wanted it but don't
bother to complain.
Now the web host is talking about requiring that all of the
subscribers be required to "opt in" again or be unsubscribed from the list--to be honest, that might not be a bad idea, but the customer wants to
avoid this.
That is a good idea. This is really the only way your customer can
continue with the mass mailing. There may have been things that your
customer might have done earlier to prevent this state of affairs,
but at this point, what the hosting providers are suggesting is the
only way forward, unless your customer can document how each address
came to be added to the list with some evidence that the person who
reads mail at that addresses confirmed the process.
Has anyone else run into a situation like this and have some practical advice?
I certainly have experience from the other end. A few years ago some
unknown person signed me up to scores of lists that didn't do proper
confirmation. Apparently, this bit of abuse is known as "list bombing".
They have been asking me about technical ways to circumvent the problem, but that sounds like a really bad idea to me for several reasons,
Your customer will either have to
(1) do what the hosting company says (and that can be done with
mailman) or
(2) prove that each address was added by the person behind that
address or
(3) close up shop or
(4) find a spammer friendly hosting service.
-j
-- Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/
Jeffrey Goldberg wrote:
How was the "opt-in" done? Was it done with Mailman's confirmation process, or would it have been possible for person A to accidently or maliciously get person B on the list? If the latter, I would consider the list mailing unacceptable.
If the list was hosted on one of our servers, we definitely would have
refused to host the list under these conditions. However, in this case
they own the server, which is located at their own office, and they have
asked me for advice as a consultant. I have told them before that they
should require confirmation and explained why they should do that.
Sometimes, people have to learn things the hard way, nothing I can do
about that. However, sometimes it is helpful to have comments from
other people and other sources that I can point to that corroborate what
I have been telling them all along, "best practices" and all that.
That is a good idea. This is really the only way your customer can continue with the mass mailing. There may have been things that your customer might have done earlier to prevent this state of affairs, but at this point, what the hosting providers are suggesting is the only way forward, unless your customer can document how each address came to be added to the list with some evidence that the person who reads mail at that addresses confirmed the process. They do have a paper trail for some of the subscriptions from paper
My position at this point is "this is a policy issue, not a technical issue." I have warned them that trying to sneak around the problem by technical means is just begging to have their account terminated as a violation of the TOS, and that moving to another hosting service is no guarantee that they won't run into the same objections again. forms that people filled out at certain events, but I don't think the documentation has been maintained with the thought in mind that someday this could be "audited", but again, this is really a policy and clerical issue and not a technical issue. Possibly, I could help them to find a solution to better manage the documentation, beyond that, it is really outside my scope of work. I have managed several other lists for other customers on other servers (albeit much smaller than this uber list) all of those have required confirmation, have never run into to this type of problem with the other lists.
Jonathan
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Brad Knowles -
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Jonathan Dill