Adam Morrison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > Not necessarily true -- bulk friendly ISPs can also have legitimate
> > customers.
>
> I think you're wrong there.
>
> In spam-fighter lingo, a ``bulk friendly ISP'' is an ISP willing to
> tolerate its users sending unsolicited bulk email, which is one of the
> more common definitions for spam. (Although not all spam fighters
> agree on that definition.)
What about solicited bulk email? A customer may quite legitimately
send bulk emails to a gazillion people who specifically requested
them. A non-commercial example: what if I run a mailing list on my
computer and am connected through an ISP?
Just about any good thing in this world can be abused. The fact that
there are people who abuse good ideas (good technology, good anything)
shouldn't lead to prevention of legitimate use of the ideas
(technology, etc). IMHO.
IIRC this thread started from an email blocked by Netvision, and then
the fact (?) that Netvision was blacklisted for being "bulk-friendly"
by (at least) one of the antispam engines was mentioned. Well, I have
complained a couple of times to netvision about spam, and one of the
complaints at least went like "look, I don't know where the bastards
come from, I can't trace them myself, you are my ISP, please
investigate it and do something about it." What do you know? Within 20
minutes I got an email informing me that the bastards had been
blocked. Most big ISPs (e.g. AOL) will automatically acknowledge a
spam complaint, but won't tell you what, if anything, they did about
it. So maybe there was something inappropriate in that Netvision told
me what they did, but I don't see what, I have not used the
information in any way (I am using it right now, telling you about the
case ;), and who cares - I am satisfied.
Think about really bad cases - being spammed by an ISP, for instance.
For quite some time I was being spammed by GeoCities (not a GeoCities
account - the GeoCities themselves). Whom do you complain to about
this? I complained to GeoCities many times, they never as much as
acknowledged my emails. It stopped only after GeoCities were bought
up. ;-)
After I have elaborated on the issue, let me remind you that it has
grown off-topic (though ISPs and spam are important topics indeed).
--
Oleg Goldshmidt | BLOOMBERG L.P. (BFM) | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"A sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out
unequally at birth." [F. Scott FitzGerald]
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