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Outlook/Hotmail is no longer blocking my mail server

taoshu.in

11–20 of 257 posts

Re: Outlook/Hotmail is no longer blocking my mail server

#11
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a different issue. You're usually not notified of spam designations, but bounces (where the mail server completely refuses to accept your email) do usually receive a notification. If you're designated as both (for example if you keep sending email that bounces) you'll get blackholed and wont receive any bounce notification either.

An advantage of landing in spam is that the user still has a choice and is in control. Rejecting outright is a "lalalala I can't hear youu!!" type of stupid situation that only big providers can get away with, without the users realizing their bigcorp is the one with delivery issues

As a user, I'm thankful I don't need to sift through hundreds of spam emails a day to find potential false positives. Because that's what you're advocating. You'd apparently like everyone to have a terrible email experience for the sake of your own personal comfort and preference (self hosting your emails).

Besides, for something truly important, the people or organisations who need to reach me know how to do so other than via email (phone, chat, postal mail...).

Re: Outlook/Hotmail is no longer blocking my mail server

#12
Running a mail server should be something anyone can do. And while this is cool, there are so many other problems to do it. It's the price we pay of letting big tech companies control so much of the virtual infrastructure: big tech has commoditized the internet so much into a platform for consumerism that it becomes a valuable target for spam.

In my opinion, the internet would be much better if none of the big players ever entered it, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc, and it would allow for many more decentralized and valuable commons like email.

Re: Outlook/Hotmail is no longer blocking my mail server

#13
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An advantage of landing in spam is that the user still has a choice and is in control. Rejecting outright is a "lalalala I can't hear youu!!" type of stupid situation that only big providers can get away with, without the users realizing their bigcorp is the one with delivery issues

As a user, I'm thankful I don't need to sift through hundreds of spam emails a day to find potential false positives. Because that's what you're advocating. You'd apparently like everyone to have a terrible email experience for the sake of your own personal comfort and preference (self hosting your emails). Besides, for something truly important, the people or organisations who need to reach me know how to do so othe…

This. Microsoft, Google, et al. aren't doing anything worthy of criticism here; it's the spammers who ruin email for the rest of us who should be facing the music.

Re: Outlook/Hotmail is no longer blocking my mail server

#14

Maybe the big webmail providers are relying more on machine learning for filtering spam instead of blocking IP ranges these days.

That would be horribly unreliable. I hope they dont rely on machine learning for such critical infrastructure.

Re: Outlook/Hotmail is no longer blocking my mail server

#15

Running a mail server should be something anyone can do. And while this is cool, there are so many other problems to do it. It's the price we pay of letting big tech companies control so much of the virtual infrastructure: big tech has commoditized the internet so much into a platform for consumerism that it becomes a valuable target for spam. In my opinion, the internet would be much better if none of the big player…

The basic fact of the matter is that >99% of people will never be interested in hosting their own e-mail server, and that's okay.

This means we need organizations to host e-mail for people. In a capitalist system, that means companies, and it leads to consolidation and monopolization. So far, governments have been seemingly uninterested in going after the large e-mail providers for anticompetitive practices; maybe that should change. But as long as those anticompetitive practices only really affect individual hobbyists who wanna host their own e-mail, while business interests are unaffected, I don't see this changing.

Re: Outlook/Hotmail is no longer blocking my mail server

#16

Maybe the big webmail providers are relying more on machine learning for filtering spam instead of blocking IP ranges these days.

That would be horribly unreliable. I hope they dont rely on machine learning for such critical infrastructure.

Blocking IP ranges is also horribly unreliable. There is no good way to fight spam in a system like e-mail, just varying levels of terrible ways.

Re: Outlook/Hotmail is no longer blocking my mail server

#17
post #15

Running a mail server should be something anyone can do. And while this is cool, there are so many other problems to do it. It's the price we pay of letting big tech companies control so much of the virtual infrastructure: big tech has commoditized the internet so much into a platform for consumerism that it becomes a valuable target for spam. In my opinion, the internet would be much better if none of the big player…

The basic fact of the matter is that >99% of people will never be interested in hosting their own e-mail server, and that's okay. This means we need organizations to host e-mail for people. In a capitalist system, that means companies, and it leads to consolidation and monopolization. So far, governments have been seemingly uninterested in going after the large e-mail providers for anticompetitive practices; maybe th…

I don't think it just affects hobbyists. It allows affects people who want to use smaller email servers, or even people who WOULD use smaller email servers simply because larger ones did not exist.

I think the government SHOULD go after consolidation such as Google, and that traditional anti-trust law is insufficient to combat the dangers of large tech companies.

This is precisely because traditional anti-trust laws only look after large PROPORTIONS. In today's modern economy, due to its size, we have a danger that we've never seen before: large ABSOLUTE size, which was never a problem in history as it is today.

Therefore, we need new laws that go after absolute size, as well as large proportions (traditional anti-trust).

Re: Outlook/Hotmail is no longer blocking my mail server

#18

Running a mail server should be something anyone can do. And while this is cool, there are so many other problems to do it. It's the price we pay of letting big tech companies control so much of the virtual infrastructure: big tech has commoditized the internet so much into a platform for consumerism that it becomes a valuable target for spam. In my opinion, the internet would be much better if none of the big player…

> the internet would be much better if none of the big players ever entered it, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc,

How this could have been possible? Like there must have been some outside regulations in the late 90s/early 2000s. Maybe as an effect of the dotcom bubble?

Also it’s a good theory but doesn’t fit the capitalist picture at all.

Re: Outlook/Hotmail is no longer blocking my mail server

#19
post #18

Running a mail server should be something anyone can do. And while this is cool, there are so many other problems to do it. It's the price we pay of letting big tech companies control so much of the virtual infrastructure: big tech has commoditized the internet so much into a platform for consumerism that it becomes a valuable target for spam. In my opinion, the internet would be much better if none of the big player…

> the internet would be much better if none of the big players ever entered it, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc, How this could have been possible? Like there must have been some outside regulations in the late 90s/early 2000s. Maybe as an effect of the dotcom bubble? Also it’s a good theory but doesn’t fit the capitalist picture at all.

There was no option due to lack of upload bandwidth for individuals at their home. And CGNAT.

If there had been significant populations with sufficient upload capacity, and ipv6, then there could have been a market for network devices that operated out of people’s homes under their own control.

Not that this would have ensured that big players would not exist, but it could have technically allowed a solution to be innovated.

The other option I can think of is a federal government provided email utility using post offices for identity verification and stiff penalties for spam/malware, to create a “trusted“ network, as opposed to using opaque processes from Google/Apple/Microsoft/Meta to create a “trusted” network.

Re: Outlook/Hotmail is no longer blocking my mail server

#20
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a different issue. You're usually not notified of spam designations, but bounces (where the mail server completely refuses to accept your email) do usually receive a notification. If you're designated as both (for example if you keep sending email that bounces) you'll get blackholed and wont receive any bounce notification either.

An advantage of landing in spam is that the user still has a choice and is in control. Rejecting outright is a "lalalala I can't hear youu!!" type of stupid situation that only big providers can get away with, without the users realizing their bigcorp is the one with delivery issues

Conversely, if you as the sender get a bounce at least you know something went wrong and can try a different way to contact the other person (different email, telephone, text message...) Bouncing is the traditional approach, and the original ethos was "bounce, or defer, or deliver, but don't ever accidentally or deliberately just drop an email on the floor".

It depends whether you think of "the user" as the sender or the re cover -- as a (human) sender I'd rather get a bounce than be silently ignored in a spam folder, but as a receiver I prefer the grey-area emails to be accept-but-spamfolder, not bounced...

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