[Mailman-Users] Internet Service Providers and Spam

[Brad Knowles]

At 9:08 AM -0400 2006-05-09, Phil usps wrote:

>  We are in the middle of a contest with a very large, popular, and
>  well-established ISP, who insists on declaring as spam, any message sent to
>  more than 100 of its customers. Since it is "spam", it is automatically
>  bounced, and hundreds of our list members not only do not receive the
>  message, the Mailman bounce features handle the bounce action as instructed.
>  This can lead to "disable" or "discard".

	All your attempts to work around this problem are likely to 
result in more pain and hassle for you.  If the messages are 
legitimate, you need to work with the ISP in question.  If they 
refuse to do that, then cut them loose and tell everyone who is a 
customer of that ISP that they are not welcome on your lists.

	If you do anything else, said ISP is likely to consider your 
efforts to be the same as any regular spammer that tries to by-pass 
their anti-spam efforts, and will treat this as proof that you are, 
in fact, spamming their members.


	Yes, this includes AOL, Yahoo!, hotmail, and all the others.

	Yes, I was Sr. Internet Mail Administrator for AOL, and I have 
personal experience from the other side.  I know how they work. 
That's part of why I don't work there anymore.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

  LOPSA member since December 2005.  See <http://www.lopsa.org/>.