On Tue, Jun 17, 2003 at 10:20:55AM -0500, John Nichel wrote:
> Drew Weaver wrote:
> > Since you're probably violating your ISPs ToS anyway I guess it doesnt
> > matter if AOL doesn't accept your mail.
> >
> > -Drew
>
> Yes and no. I have a business account, and am allowed to run things
> such as web servers and mail servers. In their business TOS, it says
> nothing about me running these items on either static or dynamic ip's
> (my account has one static and 5 dynamic ip's). I use the static for my
> business website, my mail server is on one of the dynamic ip's, and a
> gateway set up on one of the other dynamics. Their general TOS does
> state that dynamic users (regular home users) can not run these items
> though. So it's kind of a grey area.
>
> I'm not saying that AOL is wrong for this, as I'm sure a ton of SPAM
> comes from people running mail servers inside their own house.
John is quite correct here. AOl and many other large ISP's have
arbitrarily cut off millions of IP addresses which they have no evidence
are the source of SPAM simply because some of those IP's are dynamically
assigned. And some of those are sources of SPAM.
They do this purely for money. It is not a good practice for two basic
reasons:
1. Using SMTP protocol from your home computer is NOT a
violation of your terms of service(TOS). No where in the
TOS does it say you cannot do your own direct outgoing
SMTP connections and doing so does not mean you are running
a server.
2. By doing this they are punishing large numbers of innocent
internet users in an attempt to harm the guilty. It is
analogous to blowing up everyone in an entire city to kill
a few criminals.
AOL should not harm the innocent to punish the guilty especially when
there are better, more intelligent ways to keep the SPAM out which does
not impact non-spammers.
AOL is simply being lazy, and cheap. But, they are, after all, a business.
They will always opt for the cheapest way to accomplish their goals.
I can't hate them for that, but I do disagree with the policy.
Someday, when spamming is a capitol offense, some sanity will return.
:-)
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Jeff Kinz, Open-PC, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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