Re: [exim] AOL Scomp Technology

On Jul 9, 2006, at 1:49 PM, Marc Perkel wrote:

> So - if I wanted to send out notifications to owners of stuff like AOL
> does, is there an easy way to do that?
>

The biggest problem with AOL's SCOMP thing is that it is user driven,
ie, their users ID the so-called "spam" and then they send the
complaint to the "sending" host. But they do not identify, in most
cases, the name of the aol user (not name but aol name) the mail was
sent to. That is a problem for us, as every single time we get one
of those things, it is not a spam that originated or otherwise came
from our network, except for spams that are sent to our customers who
forward them on to AOL accounts, ie, forwarding customer. Our policy
is to not, in 99% of cases, delete any mail that makes it through
defenses like greylisting, sender verify, etc and to tag it through
spmassassin if we think it is spam so that the customer can filter on
it. So the AOL forwarders cause us problems when the report back
"spam" as AOL thinks that we are the senders when we are a legitimate
middleman.

In most cases, though, when we get these AOL SComp things, it is a
post to a mailing list that we host for a customer, and for which the
recipient had to sign up (things like local hobby groups or trade
groups). Or it is an automated mail from a forum the person just
signed up for and is getting instructions on how to activate the
account (and no, these are not drive by sign-ups, the people really
did sign up it turns out), or it is some reminder from a forum the
person signed up for and activated and then asked that a particular
thread be watched etc. and the forum software sends them as
requested. The fact that AOL won't identify their customer who
reported the spam is a real problem when it is to a mail list, less
so a forum response. And the fact that they do not send full headers
most of the time is aggravating too.

If you do try and send reminders, make sure you do it in a relevant
way for the recipient to do something about it. In our case, we
can't do anything about it except get people kicked off of mail
lists, if we can somehow identify them, or get all AOL people kicked
off, or people in trouble on their forums they sign up for.

My understanding is that AOL tracks "abuse" and if too many things
get flagged as spam coming from your address, they will eventually
stop accepting mail from you at all.

Chad


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Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC
Your Web App and Email hosting provider
chad at shire.net