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The War
Between Spammers and ISPs/Mail Services
We support fully the anti-spam motivations of all ISPs and
mail services. But hundreds of thousands of good e-mails are
wrongly blocked daily. It's so common, ISPs and mail
services have a term for it... "false positives." (In a war,
it's called "collateral damage.")
False positives occur due to a near-infinite combination of
reasons, that usually involve some combination of the following...
- filtering e-mail is extremely complex and "false positives"
are inevitable, even in the hands of the most sophisticated
and best intentioned
- ISPs can set the tightness of the net of the filter, resulting
in a higher "false-positive" rate -- the overzealous ISP
catches more tuna, but also catches more dolphins by mistake
- honest marketing companies can become "accidental dolphins"
in a variety of way... using words in their e-mails that
trigger filters by mistake (ex., "income"), having affiliates
who do something wrong without their knowledge, having too
many inactive e-mail addresses in their list of customers,
sabotage by unethical competitors, etc., etc., etc.
- some filters are run by unfair, vigilante groups who are
actually more anti-business than anti-spam, and too quick
to "shoot first and never ask questions."
Yes, "false positives" are so common
that ISPs and mail services take it for granted. But we don't.
And our word for "false positive" is "mistake." After
all, if you think about it, here's the bottom line...
1) You want an e-mail from us, whether due to an order,
subscription, registration, or request for support.
2) We send the requested e-mail.
3) Your ISP or mail service mistakenly filters it out.
4) You do not get the mail that you want.
Not great. It's a mistake. But on the other hand, your
ISP or mail service is trying to protect you from
spam. So...
As long as you can whitelist yourself and receive the mail you
want, there's no real damage done. We all have to put up with
some inconvenience to fight spam, as long as the ISPs are doing
their most to keep your inconvenience, and ours, to the "necessary
minimum."
What worries us the most? We worry that you might
think that somehow we here are at fault, especially if you have
trouble whitelisting yourself (Hotmail is notoriously ineffective
at whitelisting, or "safelisting" as they call it).
We're not at fault. We are "false positives," collateral
damage in the war between spammers and filters. And you, unfortunately,
are stuck here in the cross-fire with us.
If you have trouble whitelisting, contact your ISP or mail service's
help by e-mail, Web form, or best of all directly by phone.
But beware...
Your ISP or mail service may even try to convince you that somehow
we are to blame (we know that some do, because our customers
and affiliates have told us). It's far easier to blame us, or
to say "it's at the other end," than it is to admit they are
failing their fundamental obligation to deliver the mail.
If they refuse to accept responsibility, cut to the chase and
remind them of the fundamental, common-sense, sequence of events...
1) You want an e-mail from us, whether due to an order,
subscription, registration, or request for support.
2) We send the requested e-mail.
3) Your ISP or mail service filters it out.
4) You do not get the mail that you want.
Ultimately, war or no war, it is the DUTY of the ISP
to deliver the mail. That is the level at which the above
sequence is breaking down. That is waht youare PAYING them for.
And it is as simple as that. So...
Ask them, one final time, to whitelist you. We are sending
the e-mail you want to the address you indicated. So it's up
to your ISP or mail service to deliver the mail.
You may not be able to whitelist for one or more reasons...
1) Your ISP will not do it -- bad ISPs may make
up all kinds of excuses, or even blame us, but the bottom line
is that they are not delivering e-mail that YOU want. Period.
2) You can't get their support group to tell you how to whitelist.
Either they don't answer you, or they dance around the question,
or deflect blame.
3) They don't provide the tools to whitelist, or the tools
don't work. For example, the "safe list" at Hotmail does
not work when you want to permit an address through their filter.
4) Your ISP responds to a whitelist request BY TURNING OFF
THE SPAM FILTERS COMPLETELY. That's like asking someone
to put a gate in the high wall around your house and the reply
is... "Sure, we'll just take the ENTIRE wall down." Allowing
spam is an irresponsible and self-focused response to a
valid request -- it merely turfs the problem back onto the customer,
which is an unacceptable reply. Do not accept this poor proposition.
There is only one good reason not to whitelist, and that is
to block known spammers. We don't spam. We never have.
And you want this mail.
So if you cannot whitelist us, consider these two inarguable
truisms...
- It is your basic right to receive e-mail that you want.
- It is the fundamental obligation of your ISP or mail
service to deliver mail that you want.
No matter what the reasons for not whitelisting, it all boils
down to the same thing. You have a bad ISP who is not fulfilling
their obligation to you. You won't get what you want with an
ISP like that.
ISPs who are sloppy with "false positives" don't care about
the innocent companies caught up in the filters like dolphins
in a tuna net. But worse, if they won't whitelist e-mail that
you want, they don't care about you, their
supposedly valued customer.
So what to do??
1) Complain by sending an e-mail to "abuse@" and "postmaster@"
followed by the domain (ex., if you are using an address@hotmail.com,
send your complaint to abuse@hotmail.com and postmaster@hotmail.com).
Mail to those addresses has an excellent chance of being seen.
You might not get a reply, but regardless, it is important to
register a complaint when a company does not deliver the service
for which you contracted.
2) Register a different e-mail address with
us , and e-mail your question to us again from the 2nd address.
(If you want to use a free, Web-based address, Yahoo!
Mail receives our e-mail without any problem.)
We are sincerely sorry for this bother. This is not our
fault. If your ISP won't whitelist us, and instead tries to
confuse the issue or say bad things about us, please ask them
to cc us. We have nothing to hide and are being very open about
it -- we'll see if they are, too. If they refuse to cc us, please
send us a cc of their communication.
No matter what they may say to make us look bad, it's really
very simple...
We sent the mail. You want the mail. It is the
obligation of your ISP/mail service to deliver it, no matter
what they say.
Switch providers. And let them know why! |