|
July 2003 UPDATE: Hey, magically, our SPEWs listing
has disappeared! Its nice to see that bad press rolls up hill too!!
Part I: Frequently Asked Questions
Part II: How To Reduce Spam
Part I: Frequently Asked Questions:
Frequently Asked Questions about our SPEWS Listing:
- Why are you listed in SPEWS.org?
- Are you a spammer?
- Do you allow your customers to spam?
- Why don’t you get yourself off their list?
- SPEWS.org is NOT a SPAM Filter
Why are you listed in SPEWS.org?
We had (past tense, OVER 6 MOTHS AGO!) a DNS hosting client who was a spammer. They used their own (or perhaps, someone else's) mail servers to send spam. In that email, they spamvertised a site that was web hosted SOMEWHERE ELSE, but the domains DNS hosting was done by us. This happened with a couple of their domains (simultaneously) and we received only a couple of complaints. We contacted our client and reminded them of our terms of service and notified them that if they did not take corrective action, their service would be terminated. They didn’t, so we terminated them, by OUR rules.
Are you a spammer?
No. Our mail servers are NOT an open mail relay and has NEVER handled ANY spam or any outgoing mail for anyone except for our own company operations.
We send out occasional marketing emails (perhaps once a month, if that!) to clients who have provided us with their email address when either evaluating or signing up for products. We do not market to anyone who hasn’t given us their email address for OUR products listed on THIS site.
Do you allow your customers to spam?
No! As mentioned in the last two answers, we do not allow people to use our services for spamming. Our policy regarding spam is clearly stated in our Terms of Service.
Why don’t you just get yourself off the SPEWS list?
There is NO way to get off SPEWS except for posting an "I'll promise to be good sir, please take me off your list" email to the net-abuse news group. Every single posting of this kind is usually followed up by posts from a bunch of scared anonymous cowards that think they are king of the internet and haze you to death until they feel you've had enough and then they take you off the list. God help the next time you get on it, oh-doggy! And in our business, we have the potential to get a subscriber a minute signing up and spamming, and until we get a complaint, we wouldn't know about it. We can potentially be listed over and over again. Luckily, we are strict, and research and can any spammer as soon as we find out about them.
All our servers are either dedicated or colo'ed and we have signed contracts with our providers, not with SPEWS. SPEWS will NOT tell US how to run OUR business. If we spam, we are in violation of our providers signed contract and they will terminate us. Since we are still around, we obviously are not violating our agreements and all our ISPs are top notch national providers, not hokey basement country boys with a T1 and router on the beer fridge.
We have never asked to be removed from the SPEWS list, because we never asked to be put on it. We have not broken any netiquette rules, nor have we ever violated any of our providers terms of service, therefore we are not spammers, or supporters of spam and don’t deserve to be on ANY spam black list.
We are a responsible internet services company that follows and respects all acceptable internet practices. However, we will not be forced to be governed by wishy-washy rules, thought up by a group of equally wishy-washy computer nerds.
We ourselves use ordb.org, which is a true open relay black list, with very close to real time testing and removal. These fellows are providing a true service to the internet community. The SPEWS guys are a bunch of prorpeller-headed cowboys who think they have the spam thing all figured out. "Lets cut off all the ISP's IP address for any IP that's related to a domain name, and then cut off their suppliers and that should do it!" - Morons!
Our mail server is Fedex and its trying to deliver you a package. You live in a building with a door man who won't let the package in because they don't like the tone of purple on our truck. Its quite frankly none of your door mans business what's in the package or what colour my truck is, the tenant (email recipient) is the one who should determine if he/she wants to receive the package or not. Not the door man.
SPEWS.org is NOT a SPAM Filter
Do you use SPEWS? Guess what? Its not a spam filter!
Remember, the whole reason you use any spam list is to prevent spam. SPEWS list is defective and buggy in the following ways:
1. Emails that leave our server are not spam, yet your server is rejecting it as such.
2. We are still able to get email to people who block our mail to warn them about this block (you are probably reading this right now because of one of these emails!), so SPEWS attempt to block "ALL SPAM SOURCES" is defective.
3. SPEWS has no automatic detection and removal method to see when a potentially spamming sight has cleaned up their act, therefore it is realistic that potential dozens of non-spam email destined for your network is being blocked. They’ve been blocking us for 6 months and there is still no sign that they will remove us, unless we beg them too. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!
As a foot note, to date we have had 3 customers change ISPs because the ISP refused to remove SPEWs. All 3 of those ISPs no longer use SPEWS and are short at least 3 customers! ;-)
Please have your email servers spam filter reevaluated. SPEWS is NOT a SPAM Filter! Its just a private boys club that has no operational sense and are degrading valid attempts to blocking spam.
How To Reduce Spam:
If your reading this because your trying to find a way to fight spam here is a little secret: You can filter until the cows come home, you can lobby your local political puppets to change all the laws to make it easier to prosecute spammers, none of this will ever stop spam. Unfortunately, the Internet email system itself is to blame for this spam mess. If someone was able to hop onto a city bus, but only have to pay when he gets off, knowing damn well that the bus driver is going to throw him off the bus for not paying, at his stop, why wouldn’t someone abuse this loop hole?
Most of us are good, respecting people, caring for the property and rights of others. Spammers are not, they are scum, who don’t care about anyone or anything. They are abusing OUR mail servers by exploiting a loop hole in the fundamental operation of the current Internet email system: the ability to store email on the receivers mail server. Until the current Internet email infrastructure is changed, spam will continue.
For more information on this subject, check out Dan Bernstein’s Internet Mail 2000 page. People like Dan and others should be where your support goes to help fight spam. After all, if it would cost money to spam, there would be a whole lot less of it!
|
