NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Comcast Mail Blocking Issues Related to DynDNS
------- Forwarded Message From: David Farber <dave@farber.net> To: "ip" <ip@v2.listbox.com> Subject: [IP] Comcast blocking mail to its customers Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:06:42 -0400 Begin forwarded message: > From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com> > Date: October 14, 2008 1:45:19 PM EDT > To: David Farber <dave@farber.net> > Subject: Comcast blocking mail to its customers > > I am a happy user of DynDNS's Mailhop BackupMX service. Just got > the following related to Comcast's blocking of inbound mail from > DynDNS's Mailhop Forward service. Wholesale blocking of all mail > intended for customers from a particular intermediate distributor, > merely because they route it through an external service that adds > value. > > While this doesn't affect me personally, it represents a "reach" on > the part of Comcast. The "Mailhop Forward" service allows a user to > have mail directed to him personally at another domain (foo@bar.com) > to be directed to his comcast.net mailbox. As such it is like the > "forwarding" that I do with my MIT Media Lab mail to my "reed.com" > mailbox (hosted on a service provider). > > Comcast is, in this case, rejecting its own users' specific choice > of mail delivery path. Do they plan to do this for other > forwarding services? What is the competitive rationale for blocking > supposed "spam" that the users have elected to receive (and > presumably delete once they determine they are, in fact, spam)? > > From a legal point of view: Spam is defined as "unwanted commercial > email" - it is NOT "bulk" mail (bulk mail includes such things as > College Acceptance Letters to a whole class of accepted students). > Comcast's ability to determine "unwantedness" against its own > customers' expressed interests seems to be the overreaching issue > here. > > Did Comcast issue a statement to its users that warns them of this > tinkering with the mail addressed to them? > > > > -------- Original Message -------- > To: dpreed@reed.com > Subject: Comcast and MailHop Forward > From: DynDNS Lists <automailer@dyndns.com> > Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:23:14 -0400 > > > > Dear DynDNS MailHop Forward Customer, > > As you may already know from our previous communications, our DynDNS > MailHop Team has been working with Comcast over the past year to > better the > quality of mail delivery to comcast.net email addresses from our > MailHop > Forward system. The DynDNS MailHop system experiences regular > problems when > trying to promptly delivery e-mail to comcast.net e-mail addresses > because > Comcast believes that we are originating and sending comcast.net e- > mail > addresses large amount of SPAM. > > This is simply not true, rather, MailHop Forward regularly receives > SPAM, > which we scan with Spam Assassin to tag messages as such, and > depending > upon customer preference, may forward to Comcast. Comcast, on the > other > hand, ignores this tagging and believes that we are sending SPAM, > which > leads to the eventual block of our servers. > > We have worked with Comcast to come to reasonable compromise on how to > increase the reliability of e-mail delivery to comcast.net email > addresses, > but have not reached a workable solution. For most DynDNS MailHop > Forward > customers, we permit the customer to filter e-mail according to > their own > needs. However, as an intermediate email forwarding provider, > ignoring our > SPAM tagging efforts, Comcast's policy is to continue blocking our > mail > servers on a regular basis. > > Because of the restrictions that Comcast has in place we are making a > change to our MailHop Forward Service, which will affect only those > addresses that forward to a comcast.net email address. As of > November 1st; > any MailHop Forward email to a comcast.net email address will be SPAM > tagged if the message is given a SpamAssassin score of 6 or higher, > and > will be automatically discarded if given a score over 10. These new > automatic settings will only apply to forwards to Comcast email > addresses; > you will be able to customize settings for other forwards. By > reducing the > amount of forwarded SPAM, we believe that our reliability of > delivery to > comcast.net email addresses will significantly increase. > > For more information regarding this issue; see our page: > > http://www.dyndns.com/support/kb/comcast_and_mailhop_forward.html > > If you have questions regarding this issue, we have created a forum > topic > regarding this issue: > > http://dyndnscommunity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=904 > > If you run into any trouble because of these hard coded settings on > our > side; you can re-route your MailHop Forward alias to a non-Comcast > email > address or contact Comcast directly at 1-800-COMCAST and encourage > them to > reconsider their policies. > > Thank you, The DynDNS MailHop Team at Dynamic Network Services > Incorporated > > > - ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com