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Spam blacklisting is out of control

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Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#421

Post by Brian_K_White »

denton-scratch wrote: post #412
Brian_K_White wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MSP's policy can be whatever they want as long as it IS advertised. If they say "We drop 10% of messages at random, and you knowingly choose to take that, then that is just a stupid arrangement you should never agree to, but they aren't doing something unexpected. I decline to believe you are as stupid as that remark. Good faith best effort is perfectly reasonable. Not knowingly and intentionaly discarding mail i…

> The MSP's policy can be whatever they want as long as it IS advertised. No. Suppose the MSP uses bayesian filtering? How would one go about advertising a policy that depends on bayesian filtering? You'd have to publish the contents of your filter table. The only people who could benefit from that would be spammers, who could use the data to customise their spam. In general, telling the world what your filtering pol…

Then you mean "yes".

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#422

Post by quartesixte »

terom wrote: post #341
quartesixte wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers typically will only talk to other lawyers when interacting with other companies (often are ethically compelled to). An email from legal@companyA.com to legal@companyB.com will be read.

But this thread is about companyB.com blocking incoming email delivery from companyA.com :D You need to involve legal.com.

Yeah I guess that’s when you rain down BigLegal.com.

Or you send certified mail with return signature requested. Snail mail to the rescue?

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#423

Post by derekzhouzhen »

autoexec wrote: post #418
derekzhouzhen wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want people to let you into their homes, you have to make sure you don't keep lighting fires and smashing up their furniture. You analogy is flawed. In the case of IP blacklisting, it is an intermediary preventing legitimate email delivery on shaky ground. My correspondent want the mail; yet she never got to see it. This is censorship.

> it is an intermediary preventing legitimate email delivery on shaky ground. The 3rd party hosting the blacklist is an intermediary, but the network operator on the receiving end isn't. They still have total control over what lists to subscribe to, how they'll be used, and what to block or allow. That's not censorship. As a network operator it is there right to block or accept whatever traffic they want. If you, as…

So you think as long as the user can choose to leave, the platform is no an intermediary. I strongly disagree. Even if the user theoretically can choose, we have to consider the asymmetric information, high switching cost, and monopoly power that are so prevalent nowadays. I choose not to use the big email providers, but most people can't do the same.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#424

Post by autoexec »

derekzhouzhen wrote: post #423
autoexec wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is an intermediary preventing legitimate email delivery on shaky ground. The 3rd party hosting the blacklist is an intermediary, but the network operator on the receiving end isn't. They still have total control over what lists to subscribe to, how they'll be used, and what to block or allow. That's not censorship. As a network operator it is there right to block or accept whatever traffic they want. If you, as…

So you think as long as the user can choose to leave, the platform is no an intermediary. I strongly disagree. Even if the user theoretically can choose, we have to consider the asymmetric information, high switching cost, and monopoly power that are so prevalent nowadays. I choose not to use the big email providers, but most people can't do the same.

> So you think as long as the user can choose to leave, the platform is no an intermediary. I strongly disagree. Even if the user theoretically can choose, we have to consider the asymmetric information, high switching cost, and monopoly power that are so prevalent nowadays.

Some platforms rise to that level I think. Youtube is one example. Email doesn't really have that problem. Anyone can install an email server, and there are a huge amount of options (many of them "free") for those who don't want to run their own mail servers. Email is still a competitive space with different companies offering specialized services targeting people who want privacy, low cost, mass mailing capability, tracking features, etc. Email itself has a ton of competing communication protocols. There are plenty of folks who prefer to communicate over chat or by text. You can even keep an old email address and forward anything sent there to another one or use a separate email address for sending, but get replies at your old address. Switching email addresses is about as easy as it gets.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#427

Post by collegeburner »

LinuxBender wrote: post #172
collegeburner wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What hosts are best for running a mail server? I have the same issue.

That's a tough question to answer. This is very much a moving target. I suppose if I were to generalize an answer it would be something to the effect of - A dedicated server provider that has been around for a while and has a strict AUP and is known to enforce it. - A hosting provider that is not entry-level in cost. Spammers gravitate towards cheap throw-away ephemeral solutions. - A hosting provider that verifies i…

Can you recommend any providers with these verification methods? Apologies but my search turns up no results.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#428

Post by lytefm »

jbotz wrote: post #375
lytefm wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I contacted Microsoft, actually received an answer from them and got an IP unblocked. Google can be tough though. If their Algorithms don't like you, good look. I was responsible for a new IP/Email setup and while all other relevant providers liked our mail and Google Postmaster tools didn't show anything bad, all our mail went to Spam in GMail. I found out why when even mails from completely different senders would…

How did you contact them? I had problems getting mail to MS years ago and at the time wasn't able to get anyone to do anything or even respond. At some point later the problem went away, though.

I contacted them via https://support.microsoft.com/en-US/supportrequestform/8ad56...

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#429

Post by robomartin »

CliffStoll wrote: post #275
robomartin wrote: post #17

We recently ran into this issue and were forced to change email providers. It isn’t that our host didn’t care, it’s that it is almost impossible to play whack-a-mole with dozens of blacklists. We have been with the same provider for 15 years, no problems, ever. It seems that email delivery started to become unreliable about six months ago. After repeated attempts to fix it we had no choice but to move elsewhere.

Who'd you choose?

Sorry, I've been so busy I haven't checked into HN in a while.

Zoho mail. Very happy with them so far. The webmail client is excellent. Deliver is fast and without problems. We usually setup users with multiple email addresses. Using email aliasing works great. In other words, you could receive email from you@example.com, sales@example.com and vendors@example.com. This only consumes one paid user account.

Ultimately, we decided to move email for three businesses to Zoho.

The prior host was GoDaddy. I can imagine someone saying something like: "You deserve the problems you had". My counter is that we've hosted email with GoDaddy for more than ten years. No problems at all. Rarely an issue. In my opinion, most of the GoDaddy hatred is truly unfounded. If you are running a more sophisticated infrastructure you need to go to something like Linode (which we use for exactly those applications) or something else.

In the last 6 to 12 months, something changed. Once reliable email delivery became questionable we had no choice but to make a move. They said they could not do much more than request the servers in question to be removed from the various blacklists. In other words, play whack-a-mole with that entire ecosystem. A loosing proposition. So, we moved our business. Perfectly sensible decision. No hate involved. We are buying a service that, in my opinion, was no-longer being offered. Done deal.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#430

Post by LinuxBender »

collegeburner wrote: post #427
LinuxBender wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a tough question to answer. This is very much a moving target. I suppose if I were to generalize an answer it would be something to the effect of - A dedicated server provider that has been around for a while and has a strict AUP and is known to enforce it. - A hosting provider that is not entry-level in cost. Spammers gravitate towards cheap throw-away ephemeral solutions. - A hosting provider that verifies i…

Can you recommend any providers with these verification methods? Apologies but my search turns up no results.

On the very low end of that spectrum of managed/dedicated server providers would be Rackspace but I have heard it may not be as good there any more. On the high end of the spectrum would be IBM but that is very expensive. In between are various managed server providers. Just look for managed hosting and what you would actually want to research is who their customers are. Or look at it the other way around. Find medium sized companies and research who their managed hosting providers are.

Another method would be to look at colocation providers. They can give you blocks of IP space. On the low end would be Hurricane Electric if you are on the west coast. A step up from there would be Sonic. There are a myriad of colocation providers that scale up in price from there. If you wanted a presence in many locations then Equinix may be a good option though they can be expensive when you are first starting out. All of these providers have partnerships with network providers and can help get you peering arrangements, address space and much more.

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