I'm sorry for those of you who have grown weary of this subject, but obviously some
list memebers have not, nor have they thought this through completely.
Anti-"Blocking Orgs" Advocates,
I would start with . . . I hope that you have never needed the services of the Better
Business Bureau or other "consumer advocacy groups". MAPS, ORBS and the like are
providing nothing more nor less than these organizations.
As Scott and many others have pointed out,
1) You don't have to use the service to prevent delivery to your domain. If you want
all the "junk", go for it. You and your account holders can receive EVERYTHING. No
one is preventing you from receiving ANYTHING. Your choice.
2) You can address the problem of your domain (or clients) being blocked in the
following ways:
(a) Eliminate the reason for the block. One of you mentioned in a previous email
that one of your CLIENTS spammed. Your fault. Your policies either allow you (or
don't, if your lawyers are idiots) to terminate that account for abuse. As mentioned
previously, "best effort" covers you if you made a mistake and wrongfully suspended a
client. You have to protect your entire business, not just that one client. Contact
ORBS/MAPS and tell them you have suspended that account/ip range immediately (is 24
hours important enough to threaten your other accounts?). None of us are privy to the
exact communications between those of you with disputes and ORBS (or others), but for
whatever reason, they decided to leave some of you on the block list. Could they
unfairly and indiscriminately continue to block you? Yes, but remember the entire
mail exchange system is cooperative. What if I chose to block every email from
someone named "Mark-me-as-a-whiner" or from domain name "slowlearner.net"? Do you
have any recourse? NO! Its my doma
in and as the name implies, I am the master. There is no obligation, on any mail
exchange, to "guarantee" delivery of incoming mail. I could dump it all if I choose,
and the only one who would be to blame would be me. (Consequently, all my customers
would probably leave and I would promptly be out of business.) Someone mentioned
willfull additions of competition or "other undesireables" to the block databases.
Just as in our personal lives, you must be prepared to prove allegations. If you can,
then charge slander and publicize or go to court. If you can't prove slander but
still feel like you have been treated unjustly . . .
(b) Contact the Admin(s) of the domain(s) who are blocking you and tell them how
you think your are unfairly blocked. Now its their choice. Probably they will tell
you to "pack sand" or simply ignore you but, again, that is their choice (reference
consequenses above). No Guarantees of delivery!
I won't even address the political ramifications of laws to solve all of our problems
you would propose, except to say, on the Internet - No Guarantees & Caveat Emptor.
I'm sure this is not the last word but I hope this provokes some THOUGHTFUL dialogue
instead of a mass of poorly thought "slams" on the services provided (but not
mandated) by MAPS/ORBS and others who are trying to make us "small" or "average"
Admins life easier.
Barry Elk
"Small" "Lazy" "and Direspctful . . . " Sysadmin
---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "Mark McDonald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 15:02:38 -0700
>But the phone company is working one and one with you. Not blocking all
>telemarketers from everyone.
>
>-Mark McDonald
>Siteserver Account Executive
>
>EMail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Voice: 800.610.9856 Ext 231
>Cell: 805.857.5614
>Fax: 888.333.2710
--
LCDR Barry Elk
VFC-12 OPSO/SecMgr/ISSM
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> OPS related
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Security or AIS related
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Personal
757-433-4917
--
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