joeflapjack Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 I am looking for a new hosting company. I currently run a few small topic-specific mailing lists using mailman. This are small discussion groups, opt-in only, no spam, not commercial, etc. My current host has been having trouble with AOL as I guess some of their hosting clients create a good deal of spam. This means that my lists will not go through as the host itself is black-listed. Below is a common error I get when trying to send Email: reason: 554 TRANSACTION FAILED: (PRO:B1) Due to a high volume of member complaints, AOL will not currently accept email from your point of origin on) I am curious whether any current TCH clients encounter this problem and if so, how is it handled by TCH. I noted a thread about AOL, but it spoke specifically to forwarders. TIA, JoeFlapjack Quote
Deverill Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 None of TCH's servers are blacklisted with AOL. This is because we have a zero tolerance policy on spam here. If someone is officially accused of spam they are suspended immediately for this very reason. On a shared server one user can cause the whole server to be blocked and that will affect many members so we can not let that happen. The thread on forwarders is related to this because if you blindly forward you could get reported as spam without even knowing it. As the true originator of the emails, however, you should not have any problem with this unless your members forget they signed up and then it could get messy. Hope it helps! Quote
joeflapjack Posted February 9, 2004 Author Posted February 9, 2004 None of TCH's servers are blacklisted with AOL. This is because we have a zero tolerance policy on spam here. If someone is officially accused of spam they are suspended immediately for this very reason. On a shared server one user can cause the whole server to be blocked and that will affect many members so we can not let that happen. Thanks. Obviously someone on the server I share brought me down too. JoeFlapjack Quote
TCH-Dick Posted February 9, 2004 Posted February 9, 2004 Just a note here, AOL' s automated spam filter is HORIBLE!!! Even if your AOL subscribers WANT the e-mail and they haven't set up their filters correctly AOL will still block it as spam and they will never even see it. One thing I can't stress enough is if you do have a mailing list and you do send to AOL e-mail address, please please please stress to your subscribers the importance of setting up their filters correctly. If they don't, they will inadvertently report your mailing as spam and it could result in the account being suspended. I see hundreds of complaints a week from legit mailing lists sent to AOL users and even though they may be legit I still have to suspend the account in order to keep our servers from being blacklisted. Quote
Deverill Posted February 10, 2004 Posted February 10, 2004 I didn't know they could set up filters to do that, Mike. AOL is going to anti-spam themselves out of business if they keep this up. Quote
TCH-Bruce Posted February 10, 2004 Posted February 10, 2004 AOL is going to anti-spam themselves out of business if they keep this up. Never happen. Too many people think AOL is the internet. Quote
Deverill Posted February 11, 2004 Posted February 11, 2004 (edited) Yeah, but what if the following happen? 1. AOL blocks everyone so all those with decent ISPs can't email Aunt Betty. 2. "Everyone" blocks AOL because they are idiots and Aunt Betty can't email them. (or they are afraid of being blacklisted so they say "no AOL email from here." 3. AOL gets so stupid they block "non-spam" mail so "Happy B-Day" won't get thru? We have Symantec at work and as a test I sent myself an email... the subject was "I love you" and the body was "You're the best" and the bloody program blocked it as spam - and it was to myself! Someone better get Bayesian filters going or something because as it is the spam is killing us. Today our brand new email server at work almost crashed and performance was so dismal everyone was calling in. The problem? Handling replies from postmasters at a bazillion sites that got spammed with some of our addresses faked as the return address. Edited February 11, 2004 by TCH-Jim Quote
MikeJ Posted February 11, 2004 Posted February 11, 2004 We have Symantec at work and as a test I sent myself an email... the subject was "I love you" and the body was "You're the best" and the bloody program blocked it as spam - and it was to myself! Sure it didn't block it as a potential virus? There was an "I love you" virus awhile back. AOL can be a pain in the Mad!!!, but what they are doing is almost necessary. AOL is the largest target for spammers, so they need to take a very strict stance. It takes some work to keep on their good side (my company sends a couple million opt-in emails a week through my mailserver at work, at least 25% probably go to AOL alone, so I have to keep working with AOL to make sure they stay happy... and we still get blocked by them probably once every 6 months for one reason or another), but it's doable. I don't necessarily agree with all the ways they do it, but I'm glad they are doing something. Getting and staying on AOL's whitelist has even provided me more ammo to force my own company to improve it's emailing practices. Quote
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