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[MikePA]

I guess I was kinda/sorta hoping that as a "CUSTOMER" of whoever hosts TBN, and/or services the "Back end" Muhammad or a moderator could prevail on the vendor.

My guess is that there is a TBN 'bot that just bats the rejection messages back to Earthlink.
It needs to have it's knobs and switches adjusted.
IOW human intervention is required.

There is a potential business impact; We are not having our attention drawn to TBN, it's info., OR it's advertisers as much as the advertisers expect.

I'll confess, I don't understand what points you're trying to make in this post. However, as Mossroad said, moderators have no authority to make any changes. As Hakim said, they have tried to get TBN removed from the SPAM blacklists maintained by several ISPs but without success.

Don't forget, you are Earthlink's customer, not TBN. You are not receiving all the emails sent to you because of Earthlink's spam filters and policies. Earthlink has no economic interest in making TBN happy by accepting emails sent from this website. Earthlink does have an economic interest in making you, their customer, happy. They should listen to your request to receive all emails sent to you.

At most, TBN receives an email rejected message back from Earthlink. What knob is TBN supposed to adjust? Resending the email wont accomplish anything. There's no other email address they can use. They can't force Earthlink to accept the email. There's nothing TBN can do.

Since Earthlink has shown no interest in fixing a problem they created your only alternative is to have TBN notifications sent to a Gmail address. Most popular email programs, e.g., Outlook, have the ability to pull emails from multiple email accounts and put them in a common Inbox. Perhaps not a perfect solution, but the best possible given Earthlink's policies.

 

[Reg]

This issue is caused by Earthlink and/or ATT, AOL and various others, who routinely and arbitrarily count emails as spam --- SOLELY because a user of theirs marks an email as "spam." This is their way to "manage spam."

We have tried to get ATT, AOL and other services to "unblock" our address for almost 3 years. We have submitted, re-submitted and contacted all of these services, and also had our top sysadmin directly try to resolve the issue. Either they do not understand, or do not care, that we and our users, along with tens of millions of others are affected in this way.

So long as 1) these services provide their users with a big "Report As Spam?" button, and 2) if they get a few, or even ANY emails reported in this manner, they will block an ISP, you will have this problem. We are not causing it, and cannot resolve it.

Believe me, I wish their were an easy solution, but there is not any available from such providers. As long as there is email, and as long as these companies use arbitrary and ruthless methods such as this, blocked emails are going to occur.

My suggestion is that you open a Gmail account and use that for your TBN and similar affected providers. Gmail at least has intelligent people behind it, with very sophisticated spam fighting algorithms that do not destroy legitimate email. They can and do distinguish between true spammers, and large sites like TBN that generate significant legitimate emails as part of doing business.

Thanks Hakim,
I appreciate the position; for every incremental step in the armor, there is an incremental step in the armor piercing strategy/technique.
Everything that valid bulk mailers come up with the spammers use and continue to masquerade.

When I went in search of a "free" e-mail account for testing too many of them would sell me one in exchange for more of my personal data than I wanted to trade.
Birthdate, location, interests, etc.
Thanks, but no thanks, I don't want their targeted ads., I just want my messages.
G-Mail wanted some details, I forgot which ones.

Anyway, I think I'll just give up.

Although I now have a have a "free" mail account that has so far not requested any personal info, my suspicion is that I will have to pay in some way.
It may be that they will monitor my messages for keywords and send (sell) summaries to advertisers, I don't know and I don't want to worry about it.

So, thanks again to everyone who helped on this.
In looking through my subscriptions ...global warming news and harbor freight tools that don't suck ...Hmmm, how much should I really CARE about who has said what on these lately ?
{rhetoric - I have my answer already (-: }

 

[Redbug]

Well, I will start hounding Earthlink. I may have to write an email or two to the CEO or whoever has some authority. This is just not right.

 

[aczlan]

Well, I will start hounding Earthlink. I may have to write an email or two to the CEO or whoever has some authority. This is just not right.

Go for it. I sit on the other side of the fence at work where I am trying to get our emails to not be blocked and I have a hard time getting through to these people. Yahoo in particular, I sent an email with everything that they requested and heard nothing back. 2 weeks later, I get an email telling me that my ticket has been resolved and is being closed. I responded and let them know that we were still having email being delayed. That was a month ago and I have not heard a peep, but our emails have not been delayed in a week or so...

I do not know how they do it, but they do not care if the person sending the email cannot get through. Perhaps they pay more attention to a customer.

Aaron Z

 

[RadarTech]

I have not tried a different provider.
What I want to AVOID is switching just for this, finding out that it isn't anything to do with my ISP and then switching back again.
Not JUST being selfish, I don't want all my mail to get diverted to a temporary account.

I might be able to use someone else's e-mail for a short while and have them autoforward everything to me. This would have to be someone who just about never uses their e-mail, never receives anything private or sensitive and trusts me to mess around with their computer for a day or two.
SURPRISE !!! No names spring to mind (-:

Yes Aaron, that "please fill out this form to become an authorized sender" message is a direct consequence of not being in someone's earthlink address book, but the messages still appear in the suspect email folder. a) TBN has been in my address book for many years b) The notifications aren't even getting to my suspect email folder.

Muhammad,
Is there any (reasonably easy) way you could search through the "We have been blocked by" list to see if earthlink shows up ? even once in a while ?
If so I would be HAPPY to beat on them from the customer end - heck it would be MY mail that they would be messing with (IF that is what is happeneing).

Thanks all,

\R

got an idea for ya...
I have several "feeder" mail accounts...
In the past I have registered for email newsletters for various and asundry things..

And then I started getting spammed to death from a couple.. After asking them to fix it I got no reply..
so I started creating new GMAIL accounts for these things..
THEN-- I have them FEED or shall I say forward to my normal account..

I get the email and all is well, if XYZ starts spamming me, I go to that feeder account and ID that email as spam...

In your case where AT&T etc is blocking you..build a gmail account and then have it forward to your normal account...

should get around the blocks...

whatcha think?


Now the other thing.. I have noticed is if I subscribe to a thread and there is a reply, all further updates to that thread are blocked until I come back and login...not sure I like that, maybe I can change that?


J

 

[aczlan]

got an idea for ya...
I have several "feeder" mail accounts...
In the past I have registered for email newsletters for various and asundry things..
And then I started getting spammed to death from a couple.. After asking them to fix it I got no reply..
so I started creating new GMAIL accounts for these things..
THEN-- I have them FEED or shall I say forward to my normal account..
I get the email and all is well, if XYZ starts spamming me, I go to that feeder account and ID that email as spam...
In your case where AT&T etc is blocking you..build a gmail account and then have it forward to your normal account... should get around the blocks... whatcha think?

.
I just use one gmail account for everything but responding to scams, however, I use the gmail's + feature to filter emails. For example, instead of giving TBN my email address of xyz@gmail.com I give them xyz+TBN@gmail.com. Then if I start getting spam to xyz+tbn@gmail.com I know that TBN sold my address.
Truth be told however, I get 20-50 emails/day (I am on a prolific Volvo car email list) and I see perhaps one spam email per week. The rest (~730 in the last month) Gmail automatically marks as spam and they go to the spambucket where they are deleted after 30 days.

Now the other thing.. I have noticed is if I subscribe to a thread and there is a reply, all further updates to that thread are blocked until I come back and login...not sure I like that, maybe I can change that?

That is on purpose so that you do not get spammed with updates (imagine being subscribed to the Global Warming News thread like that on accident)

The subscription modes are:

* No Email Notification - lists the subscription in your User CP only. You do not receive any notifications about new posts or threads in the thread.
* Daily Email Notification - sends one email a day with the new and updated threads in the thread. If there are no new or updated posts in the threads then you will not receive an email.
* Weekly Email Notification - sends one email per week in the same way as the Daily Email Notification.
* Instant Email Notification - sends an email as soon as a new post is added to the thread. This is not sent for every reply and will only be sent once until you revisit the thread
Shamelessly adapted from: Dynamic Drive Forums - FAQ

Aaron Z

 

[Reg]

I'll confess, I don't understand what points you're trying to make in this post. However, as Mossroad said, moderators have no authority to make any changes. As Hakim said, they have tried to get TBN removed from the SPAM blacklists maintained by several ISPs but without success.

Don't forget, you are Earthlink's customer, not TBN. You are not receiving all the emails sent to you because of Earthlink's spam filters and policies. Earthlink has no economic interest in making TBN happy by accepting emails sent from this website. Earthlink does have an economic interest in making you, their customer, happy. They should listen to your request to receive all emails sent to you.

At most, TBN receives an email rejected message back from Earthlink. What knob is TBN supposed to adjust? Resending the email wont accomplish anything. There's no other email address they can use. They can't force Earthlink to accept the email. There's nothing TBN can do.

Since Earthlink has shown no interest in fixing a problem they created your only alternative is to have TBN notifications sent to a Gmail address. Most popular email programs, e.g., Outlook, have the ability to pull emails from multiple email accounts and put them in a common Inbox. Perhaps not a perfect solution, but the best possible given Earthlink's policies.

It started as a problem identification and solving task, it wasn't about point making.
TBN is as much (more ?) of a customer of their web host as I am of Earthlink.
Most of this thread progressed before Hakim's post, at a time when I was just trying to identify and solve a problem.
Hakim's post revealing the work already done has come later.

I don't think that Earthlink has created the problem, they have implemented an imperfect solution to a problem created by spammers.

SOMEhow better discrimination between "valid bulk mailers" (Please excuse the term TBN) and spammers is needed.

RIGHT NOW it appears to be behavior based with an exception process.
It would SEEM that this could/should work, IF the requests for exceptions were acted on.
If, as I joked earlier, the exception requests are being caught by 'bots that classify them as spam then it won't work.

I'll beat on Earthlink a couple of times, maybe three, but my guess is that they will tell me that the request for exceptions have to come from the blockee
There is still the opportunity to work this from bith sides.

 

[MikePA]

It started as a problem identification and solving task, it wasn't about point making.

I didn't make myself clear. I couldn't determine exactly what you were requesting TBN do, that wasn't already tried.

I don't think that Earthlink has created the problem, they have implemented an imperfect solution to a problem created by spammers.

We disagree. Earthlink's 'imperfect solution' has created a problem.

SOMEhow better discrimination between "valid bulk mailers" (Please excuse the term TBN) and spammers is needed.

Plenty of ISPs do this discrimination correctly. Earthlink does not.

There is still the opportunity to work this from bith sides.

Again, we disagree. One side has already done all it can.

My purpose is not to be argumentative but rather identify both the source of the current problem and who can resolve it. While the ultimate source of the problem are spammers, this fact is irrelevant to resolving the problem. Earthlink has caused this problem by blocking emails from TBN then ignoring repeated requests to unblock them. TBN has done all it can, the ball is in Earthlink's court, and yours.

 

[MossRoad]

Pretty simple... Call Earthlink and tell them you want to receive e-mail from TBN. Tell them to make an exception in their system to white list all e-mail from TBN to you. If they can't do that for you tell them you will be looking for another ISP, as you need this e-mail and the sender is known to be safe. You need to take the bull by the horns here.

 

[Reg]

I didn't make myself clear. I couldn't determine exactly what you were requesting TBN do, that wasn't already tried.



We disagree. Earthlink's 'imperfect solution' has created a problem.



Plenty of ISPs do this discrimination correctly. Earthlink does not.


Again, we disagree. Earthlink has set up their firewalls to block emails from certain domain names. TBN has already requested this block be removed, multiple times. What else can TBN do?

We can continue to disagree Mike, I want to move towards solutions.

From this morning's research (and YES, I am going through a learning curve on this) it would seem that spam blocking is performed along similar lines to web searches.
If you want search engines to find your web site sign up and make your own entry in DMOZ, don't pay hundred$ to anyone to publish your site to the search engines, most of them go off the DMOZ index anyway.
Similarly with ad blocking, trying to block all ads would become a full time pastime, so we subscribe to lists like this one https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easylist.txt

OK, so how about spam mail blocking ?
This is speculation, but my guess is that Earthlink (and others) subscribe to lists.
It is at least POSSIBLE that they get updates that overwrite any exceptions lists - yes, they could put a process in place to then apply the exceptions again... anyway, this is guesswork.

I think TBN may need to get itself removed from the lists that Earthlink and other ISPs use.
Here;
====================copy/paste=================
The CBL
CBL Lookup
This is a list of IPs that may be currently infected and sending spam
unknowingly.

Spamhaus
http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/index.lasso
From their website you will be able to query your IP to see if it is
listed in any of their 3 lists that track dynamic IPs, zombied IPs,
and IPs that are known to purposely send spam.
=====================end copy/paste================

With apologies to Hakim, Muhammad and other moderators and sysadmins if the above is part of what has already been tried and proved to be useless.
I cannot work with CBL, Spamhaus, or Earthlink without TBN's mailer IP (or something like that) and authority.

For now, "that's all I got".
(-: