RBL quandry - opinions hereby solicited

Steven J. Sobol sjsobol at nacs.net
Tue Nov 17 05:38:50 UTC 1998


On Mon, Nov 16, 1998 at 06:59:08PM -0500, Dean Anderson wrote:
> At 01:19 PM 11/16/1998 -0800, Paul A Vixie wrote:
> >> I would suggest that they would not be RBLed as 
> >> 
> >> 	1] this is a list that can be easily (I assume) opted out of.
> >
> >no.  there is no way to opt out of it.
> 
> Not so. You can use another registry. .COM, .NET, and .ORG may be the most
> popular, but they are not the only ones.

Absolutely true.

HOWEVER, I think you'd probably agree that the *demand* is for COM/NET/ORG
domains, for which there is unfortunately still only one source.

You, as an ISP, generally won't choose a domain for a client's web site;
the customer will. 

> When you refuse to do business
> with NSI, they don't send you email.  They don't get lists and send email
> to random people.

As far as I know this is also true (thank goodness for small miracles ;)

> Personally, I don't see anything wrong with most of the mail I've gotten
> from them.  Some of it a bit technically insulting, but that doesn't make
> it totally unreasonable from an email ethics point of view. It certainly
> doesn't qualify as spam, since it is in fact solicited.  You paid $100+ for
> the privilege.

See, that's the problem, there is a difference of opinion as to what
constitutes spam. Some people consider solicitations for additional business
to be spam even if there is an existing business relationship (as would be
the case with NetSol). 

<tongue-in-cheek>
I always am happy to come up with additional reasons to hate NetSol
</tongue-in-cheek>

but I'm not sure this is one of them.

Still, it would be nice to be able to say "I only want to be contacted
on technical matters." Microsoft now allows you to opt-out of phone calls,
snailmail AND e-mail when you register (or re-register, if needed) at the
Microsoft Developer Network website. I had to do it myself a few times after
I deleted their cookie accidentally. That's the best solution to this
situation.

Here comes a shocking statement: I agree with Dean. NetSol should not be
RBL'd. In a previous e-mail to this list I recommended that Paul apply the
same standards for RBL candidacy to NetSol that he would apply to anyone
else. And now, upon reading this message from Dean, I must agree that NetSol
does not meet the necessary requirements.

Now, they DO sell their customer list. Having registered spamfree.org, I
later received a snail-mailing from New England Business Forms addressed
to the Forum for Responsible & Ethical Email (the registrant of the domain)
at my PO box (the address registered on the domain).

I don't know whether or not they sell their customer list to junk
e-mailers.

-- 
Steve Sobol [sjsobol at nacs.net]
Part-time Support Droid [support at nacs.net]
NACS Spaminator [abuse at nacs.net]

Spotted on a bumper sticker: "Possum. The other white meat."




More information about the NANOG mailing list