Rich Kulawiec quoted a Usenet post by Robert Dinse:
D> Netzero has apparently implimented a brilliant policy of bouncing e-mail
D> that sits in a netzero mailbox for more than six months.
D> This caused severe problems this morning as mail from a list was all
D> returned by netzero enmasse ...
Michael Johnson responded,
J> If I understand NetZero's error messages correctly, they successfully
J> delivered mail to a user who decided not to read it.
Not exactly (though the misunderstanding is NetZero's fault for saying "sat
unread in the mailbox" and not the fault of Michael's reading). NetZero does
not provide a webmail interface; you have to get your mail by POP3. There-
fore they see the situation as their having successfully accepted mail for
a downstream system, but the message will be deemed delivered only when the
downstream system polls them to pick it up. Thus they consider this a fail-
ure to complete delivery that requires an NDN.
Suppose a domain gets its mail through an MX host; if mail for an address in
that domain reaches the MX host but the end system has not picked it up, is
it not undelivered? Shouldn't the MX host bounce it to the sender if the end
system doesn't pick it up within a reasonable amount of time?
If NetZero offered webmail as well as POP3 or instead of it, then the message
would be available to the end recipient by means other than a mail transport
protocol, and it could be considered delivered when it reached NetZero, and
the customer's neglecting to read it would not justify a bounce.
J> I don't expect to receive any error messages regarding successfully
J> delivered e-mail.
In NetZero's view, the mail was not delivered successfully. The NDN really
should have said that the message sat unfetched in the customer's mail queue,
not that it sat unread in the mailbox.
Tim Pierce wrote,
P> Our list managers are getting thousands of them at a pop.
P> We do consider it a serious problem, and I am sorely tempted to block the
P> domain until they fix it.
The flood was caused by their first implementing the policy and returning at
once all unfetched messages from the inception of NetZero until six months
before the torrent. On a list for NetZero users where several NetZero em-
ployees post, one of the latter said that henceforth mailboxes would be
cleared of old unfetched mail at intervals no greater than two weeks, so
there should be no repetitions of that initial downpour.
