AOL Spam Roadblock Takes a Toll

Anyone who manages a mail list of any real size knows what a pain it is nowadays to deal with the various spam-blocking techniques employed by different ISPs. As we saw recently with Yahoo, some anti-spam traps seem designed to catch legitimate e-mail as much as the junk. One reader, however, has gotten so frustrated with the inflexible spam-blocking approach of AOL that he’s wondering if the company is deliberately using it to promote its guaranteed e-mail delivery service.

The reader writes:

“I am one of a couple dozen volunteer administrators of a website for car enthusiasts with over 60,000 participants worldwide. Our discussion lists have routed nearly a million helpful e-mails between members through our mailing lists. In an attempt to maintain our independence, we have eschewed ads and commercial support. We rely solely on our members’ donations, which we do not solicit via mass e-mailings. Not only are we all opt-in, to be able to access our forums one has to complete a full registration page and check the unchecked boxes to receive notifications of list postings and free ads.”

“Three years ago, to much fanfare, AOL introduced their new and improved spam blocking which included end-user-generated spam reports as one component. While there are certainly knowledgeable AOL users, there are enough Clueless Ones (COs) that basing a decision on their reaction to a concept they don’t comprehend would result in predictable failure. The COs’ definition of ‘spam’ does not include the concept of ‘unsolicited’ or ‘commercial,’ it’s just ‘e-mail I’ve decided I don’t wish to receive.’ So rather than returning to our website to de-register or deselect any notifications, they start marking all our e-mail as spam. Each one generates a spam report, which is tracked by AOL and forwarded to us. Our most active e-mail lists forward a hundred messages per day, so you can see that one CO can generate a lot of reports and create headaches for the list administrators. We’d dump the COs in a heartbeat, but AOL redacts their e-mail addresses.”

“Spam reports trickle in (compared to our volume of unrejected e-mail) to AOL-central until we reach an unspecified threshold, then AOL blocks all of our e-mail. AOL has a lengthy unblock/whitelist procedure which takes about five hours of admin time over three days to complete. As soon as we complete that, spam reports — most likely from the same individual or individuals who caused us to be blocked in the first place — start arriving and the cycle repeats. On average it happens every three to six months.”

“A legitimate site should not have to go through this repeatedly just because AOL hasn’t considered the consequences of automatically blocking customer-reported spam without some verification procedure. Something as simple as comparing the number of spam reports to our total AOL mail volume would be a start. Trying to permanently resolve the issue from our end has been impossible. When one of the AOL postmasters returns our calls, which is infrequently, they send us back to the ineffective unblock procedure.”

“We’ve asked our AOL members to call to complain, figuring they’d receive a more sympathetic hearing since they are the ones paying the bills. They’ve been told to have us sign up for AOL’s pay-per-e-mail guaranteed delivery service. Now the light bulb clicks on! AOL assured everyone that they would not block legitimate e-mailers when they instituted their pay-per-mail service, but like a speed trap on a low-limit stretch of fast road, this is a moneymaker for them. Hassle with trying to beat the ticket, or pay the fine.”

“What they’ve neglected to consider is a third alternative — we’re planning to inform our 6000-plus registered AOL members that because of AOL’s overly restrictive spam policies we cannot guarantee delivery of requested e-mail from our site. Furthermore, because of our repeated, unsuccessful, and time consuming attempts to resolve the problem with AOL, we’ll be immediately blocking new registrations from AOL users and pretty soon we’ll be de-registering all AOL users and removing them from our mailing lists. We’re compiling a letter instructing our users on how to find and set up alternate ISPs or free mail providers to handle their e-mail needs. That will be easier than dealing with AOL every few months.”

What do you think? Is AOL using its spam-blocking procedures to get business for its paid e-mail, or is AOL, as our reader might say, just another Clueless One? Post your comments on my website or write me at Foster@gripe2ed.com.

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