Spamhaus and ISP spar over 'email DoS' blacklisting

Re Marvin

Most would probably read over it, yes. I didn't pick it apart properly either, and there is lots more word-weaseling going on. But I thought I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, figuring this was enough red flag to make the point. Seems I've hit a bit of a raw nerve regardless with some. Especially those who fail to understand the salient points of just how the internet is put together. "Self-appointed vigilantes" indeed. Oh well.

That was Latvia's NIC, which I found quite astounding. Someone badly needed a time-out over there. Spamhaus' listing of nic.at IMO was unconsciable. Blocking IP addresses for spamming is one thing (and well-regulated escalating is excusable there), but blocking the name registry, disrupting its service, for refusing to drop names from the registry without sufficient proof that the names somehow violate nic.at's Ts&Cs... well, blocking at all there is out of line really. Arguments like "don't worry about the legalities, the phishers won't complain" are themselves a bit disingenious. Spamhaus doesn't have squeaky clean hands there, even if it did work out in the end. I suspect more than a few Austrian services will either have dropped spamhaus or at least whitelisted nic.at for that little trick.

e360 probably had nothing better to do anyway, and he did get a default judgement at first, only to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory", quoth the judge presiding. Impressive, that. But then, believing everyone else and the world is to blame for their own stupidity is a trait many spammers and (dare I say other) criminals share. Down to people (even here) effectively demanding service guarantees. Well, if other people choose to have their servers not accept email from you, tough cookies. I do reserve that right for my servers, and I will use any list to aid me in that as I see fit, yes.

No sympathy for you, terry.

If you're in the email business then you should know where to look. I regularly check my hosting provider for spamhaus (et al) listings and I'm about to move to another because this bunch have accrued too many ROKSO regulars (and done did claim incompetence at fixing it: "we're too big!!1!", but I accidentally noticed their abuse@ is /dev/null'ed in spamcop. oh well). If you think getting stuck on spamhaus' list is a nightmare, then go make a fool of yourself in public (like nic.lv, for instance) and get stuck on innumerable and entirely private blacklists that you haven't a snowflake's chance in hell to ever find all, nevermind get off again. Meaning you just burned a chunk of IP space and will likely have to hop over to the next like a good little spam outfit.

You seem to've forgotten that the internet doesn't exist as an entity; it's a cooperative of networks. That very much indeedy means that each network can, and does, set their own rules. Yes, I've been on the receiving end of that one too*, and while aggravating, if the other guy says no there's really nothing you can do. If you want to play in this playground, then those are the rules. If you can't abide, well, someone will tell you off. And they did. Sucks to be you.

In that way, a dnsbl with a published policy and clearly defined contacts is a service to the general public and moreso to everyone that ends up on the list. It sucks to get on it, but if you do you generally deserved it --if not your provider did, either through spamming or negligence, and you should change providers-- and even so you get a clear shot at getting off. Even these A2B bozos did get off right quick.

Calling for protection for "poor little people"? You're a business. What do you want, a world internet police protecting everyone from badness but which so naturally is not your spam? Or are you simply a sucker for bureaucrazies? Spar the ITU to get off their world-wide blacklist? Try and convince ICANN to see reason and delist you? Petition the UN by telex to please be allowed to email again? Get real.

* IICR it was verizon blocking all of Europe indiscriminately so customer care replies back to inquiries made by verizon users never made it, with predictable results. Didn't help that at that time the US was recorded as emitting more spam than Europe.

Ah well, you see

A lot of us consider you internet marketers to be in a worthless business, your codes of conduct to be self serving and essentially meaningless and your "legitimate" activities best confined to the dustbin of history...

@ Terry Maguire

>> We use the internet for B2B marketing and were shocked to find that we could be blacklisted without any warnings and only found out via our customers.

Ahh diddums.

Quite frankly, most "marketing" is spam. Apologies if you genuinely only ever send mail to those who genuinely and **knowingly** opted in - if you are then you are in a very very small minority. Note that failing to tick a box, hidden at the bottom of a long form, drawn in pale grey on a slightly paler grey background and labelled with pale grey text, does **NOT** constitute an opt in.

If you were prevented from sending emails because of being on a blacklist then the reason is that the recipients had made policy decisions that they don't want to receive mail from the sort of outfits that find themselves on the blacklist(s) they use. Once you realise that, then your complaint becomes "I couldn't send mail because the recipients didn't want it", and the logical extension of your comments becomes "people shouldn't be allowed to block our emails just because they don't want to receive them".

As an analogy, I'm sure some (for example) minicab outfits have policies about the types of people they want to have in their cars. Some may have a policy not to take bookings from the "rougher end of town" - if that is the case, then your complaint that they won't pick you up is down to you choosing the wrong place to live. The internet is a bit like that - if you make the mistake of setting up office in a rough neighbourhood (ie an ISP that supports spammers) then I'm afraid you'll just have to live with the fact that you won't be able to deal with the people who don't want to deal with email from "the rough end" of the internet.

That is a policy decision made by the people who set up their mail servers. The blacklists simply provide an opinion about any particular bit of the internet. They don't block any mail, and no-one is forced to use them if they don't want to.

I run the mail service for a small ISP/IT services company. Yes we occasionally get blacklisted, and it's almost always because one of our customers has been a d**khead with the stuff they send. However, I find dealing with blacklists a lot easier than dealing with the f***tards at the likes of AOL.