Are AOL's MXs mass rejecting anyone else's emails?

Tue Sep 7 14:59:20 UTC 2004

On Tue, 7 Sep 2004, Jon Lewis wrote:

> Any network that doesn't already have it, I highly recommend signing up
> for AOL's feedback loop (aka scomp reports) at
> http://postmaster.aol.com/tools/fbl.html.  This will give you a sort of
> early warning system notifying you of spam issues on your network.

And you will also get random emails that your users have sent to AOL users, 
who then click on "Report as spam" seemingly at random.

I've received Spam reports on e-mail asking when someone's kids should be 
picked up at school, giving directions for a job interview, CONGRATULATING 
that same person on being accepted for the job, and in once case received 
a 'spam complaint' on every mail my user sent as part of a conversation. 

As in, the AOL user replied, then clicked "Report as spam". He received a 
reply to his reply, replied, and Reported as Spam. This was not a "Stop 
e-mailing me" conversation. It was a perfectly normal conversation between 
two people.

Then there are the people who have mail forwarded from here to their AOL 
account, and can't get it through their thick skulls that "Report as spam" 
isn't doing a damn thin in this case.

Grrrr.

So it's a nice idea -- but IMHO fails in practice.

==========================================================
Chris Candreva  -- chris at westnet.com -- (914) 967-7816
WestNet Internet Services of Westchester
http://www.westnet.com/