[ NNSquad ] Re: Comcast Mail Blocking Issues Related to DynDNS

[Barry Gold <bgold@matrix-consultants.com>]

Walt Daniels wrote:
> Besides these attempts at blocking what ISPs think is spam, some, Optonline
> for example, are also blocking mail from mailing lists that I have
> subscribed to UNLESS the list has paid SenderSource to white list them. It
> took me awhile to figure out why I was not getting mail sent to a mailmain
> list server I run. In this case a private list of 6 people working on a
> project of which I am one. They want me to pay them $500 to whitelist my
> list and swear that everyone has double opt-in, etc. It turns out that they
> had turned on spam blocking on my account, without every asking me. When
> turned off, I now seem to be getting mail from my list again. But I am not
> sure if that is the full explaination. It may just be that they had too
> little traffic from that list for it to get a reputation. 

$500 to whitelist a mailing list?  That's about as wrong-headed as can 
be.  It should be up to individual users to decide what to whitelist, 
and they should be able to turn spam control on and off.  That amounts 
to "pay us $500 and you can spam our users all you want."

> The central common thread is a complete lack of transparency.

Amen to that, brother.  Spam filtering should be _available_ to users if 
they want it, but it should not be turned on by default.  And users 
should be able to fine-tune it -- set the level of match required before 
messages are blocked or tagged as spam.

At least I found out what was tagging my incoming (non-spam) mail as 
"spam".  The anti-virus program that was installed by the shop that 
built the computer was doing it.  I have turned off its spam filtering 
-- I figure Thunderbird does a better job.  Their spam filter responds 
to "spam" and "not spam" buttons in Outlook Express and some program I 
never heard of called "The Bats--t" or something like that.  But not to 
Thunderbird.

I'm planning to contact their support line anyway.  The initial license 
period (with free updates) is almost over.  If they can make it link 
with Thunderbird, I will consider renewing.  If not, it's back to Norton 
(or maybe AVG) for me.