BCP for Abuse Desk

Fri Jun 2 19:59:32 UTC 2006

I've found that the reserving the right to nullroute an offending host's 
IP address for repeated spam offenses is a good intermediate step 
between simple notifications and contract/circuit termination. It lets 
the customer know you mean business while still preserving the 
customer's account status; if the offender is a web hoster, it winds up 
being a particularly effective tool, as the threat of collateral damage 
from other sites hosted on the same IP is pretty compelling.

Of course, it's important to be willing to remove the nullroute as soon 
as the customer confirms that the problem has been dealt with, otherwise 
it does effectively become a partial termination of services.

-C

Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
> On Tue, 30 May 2006 20:51:55 CDT, you said:
> 
> 
>>>  3d) Make sure your ToS allows nuking a spamming/abusive host.
>>>  3e) Then *use* that clause in the ToS when needed.
>>
>>Each of the ISP's I worked for had such a clause.  I felt it
>>was a double edged sword.  The only choices were to use it or
>>not to use it, and on non-clear cut cases the business side of
>>a company may be reluctant to heave a paying customer out the
>>door.  I would advocate service contracts that allow a graduated
>>response including, but not limited to, getting rid of the 
>>customer.  That way, there are penalties available even in cases
>>of "unintentional" network abuse.  
> 
> 
> As I said, "when needed".  As you correctly noted, sometimes it's
> more helpful to the bottom line if it remains an unmentioned stick
> while you find a carrot to wave at the customer.   If a well-phrased
> phone call or two and a helpfully informative e-mail can get the problem
> resolved, you obviously didn't *need* to nuke. :)