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>* pinning the entirety of the blame on the third party provider is wrong.* We disagree. It's certainly understandable that the third-party might raise false-p

>* pinning the entirety of the blame on the third party provider is wrong.* We disagree. It's certainly understandable that the third-party might raise false-positives. However, what is wrong is when a business can demonstrate that it is not engaged in such practices, yet the third-party provider still refuses to cease penalizing them. So, who else's fault would it be? Mine? The customer? The customer's e-mail provider who contracts with the third-party? Some unrelated spammer who makes the third-party's business really difficult to execute well? I don't think so. The third-party is in the business of profiting from the proper classification of senders. It's their risk and responsibility to fix these problems. >the reason why you're getting hostile replies here. Well, I didn't think the replies were particularly hostile. A little misguided maybe, but not hostile. Anyway, I think you're also jumping to a lot of conclusions and, frankly, not reading very carefully. Firstly, we're not an "email advertiser" in the sense you're implying. We're a member-based site with a newsletter, into which only members double opt-in out of their interest in our service. The ads I referenced are occasional sponsorships by businesses that are also highly-relevant to our service and members' interests. But, we don't just push ads and we follow all rules regarding proper email management. Secondly, our content was never the issue anyway. As I mentioned, the issue was that we were falsely claimed to have been sending to honeypot addresses and/or defunct addresses. I enumerated the reasons why we knew this to be in error. I hate spam as much as anyone. In fact, my reaction to it is probably borderline irrational. But, there are legitimate businesses with legitimate customers between whom e-mail is a mutually beneficial channel. There's nothing "scary" about that. And, my initial point was in response to an ancestor comment, wherein I agreed that certain "anti-spam" practices make it far too difficult for those who use the channel properly and respectfully.

Asbostos 11y ago
How about let your members keep missing their emails. If they really want them, encourage them to sort out the problem with their email provider which is apparently failing to do its job? Since the recipients are the ones who choose to receive it, then they're also the ones to be upset when something goes wrong - especially since it's caused by their choice of an unreliable email provider. I use email for a slightly more spammy purpose (double opt in but mainly to promote sales to existing users) so I wouldn't be able to make this claim if it happened to me - my recipients won't notice if they don't get my email and many won't care. I have to deal with these problems too, usually by manually asking the blacklister to unblacklist me, which they seem to do.
- unclebucknasty 11y ago
  Unfortunately engaging users in a campaign to encourage their providers to sort it out is a bit of a quagmire. Meantime, our business suffers. It's a good thought. Just wish it were simpler to pull off.
  - Asbostos 11y ago
    What I mean is passively let them take up the problem themselves if they want your newsletters. Since it's something they expect and want, they might choose to pressure their email provider into solving it. Of course if they don't really want it or just half-heartedly signed up because it seemed like it might be useful at the time then they're not going to make the effort. And I guess that's the situation almost everybody is in when they find they're not receiving emails due to false positive spam filtering. So it's basically a terrible situation for everyone :( At least we have these magic solutions like MailChip or MailJet (what I use because the free plan fits my usage pattern) so you could turn to something like that if you really had no luck chasing the spam list company.
david-given 11y ago
> However, what is wrong is when a business can demonstrate that it is not engaged in such practices, yet the third-party provider still refuses to cease penalizing them. They don't have any responsibility to help you do business. Comcast and your recipients are not required to accept your email. It's in their interest to do so, of course, because that's what their customers are paying them to do so... but their customers are also paying them not to accept email, because most email is spam, and they don't want to receive that. Email is not a common carrier medium. You can't demand people accept your traffic. It just doesn't work like that. > The ads I referenced are occasional sponsorships by businesses[...] ...which means, unfortunately, that people are paying you to send advertisements by email, which means that you're in the email advertising business. Which means that people will automatically assume you're malicious. Which sucks, but...
- unclebucknasty 11y ago
  >They don't have any responsibility to help you do business No, but in the course of doing their business, this third party cannot wrongfully interfere with our business. It's a key distinction that you are missing. As to the rest of your comment, you are assuming that the problem was the content (advertising). However, I have stated at least three times on this thread the actual issue; we were erroneously classified as sending to honeypots and/or defunct addresses.
  - david-given 11y ago
    > No, but in the course of doing their business, this third party cannot wrongfully interfere with our business. Um... they're an email filtering company, and you're an email sending company. Interfering with your business is their business! That's what Comcast is paying them to do --- Comcast want your business interfered with! > As to the rest of your comment, you are assuming that the problem was the content (advertising). I'm afraid you've missed my point here. The content is important, because having advertising in the content means that they will have already written you off as a reputable company. I'm pretty sure the conversation at their end went something like: A. Hey, Bob, I've just got an email from someone claiming we shouldn't be blocking their email, but they're on the honeypot list. B. Sigh. Again? Do we have one of their messages? A. Yup. Here. B. <spends two seconds skimming message> It's got advertising in it. They're a spammer. Screw 'em. (It may not even have gone that far. I have no idea what format your newsletters are in, but if they score badly they may not even have bothered to look at them.) My point is: you may not be a bad guy, but to an awful lot of people in the SMTP industry, you're going to look just like one.

Asbostos 11y ago

How about let your members keep missing their emails. If they really want them, encourage them to sort out the problem with their email provider which is apparently failing to do its job? Since the recipients are the ones who choose to receive it, then they're also the ones to be upset when something goes wrong - especially since it's caused by their choice of an unreliable email provider. I use email for a slightly more spammy purpose (double opt in but mainly to promote sales to existing users) so I wouldn't be able to make this claim if it happened to me - my recipients won't notice if they don't get my email and many won't care. I have to deal with these problems too, usually by manually asking the blacklister to unblacklist me, which they seem to do.

unclebucknasty 11y ago
Unfortunately engaging users in a campaign to encourage their providers to sort it out is a bit of a quagmire. Meantime, our business suffers. It's a good thought. Just wish it were simpler to pull off.
- Asbostos 11y ago
  What I mean is passively let them take up the problem themselves if they want your newsletters. Since it's something they expect and want, they might choose to pressure their email provider into solving it. Of course if they don't really want it or just half-heartedly signed up because it seemed like it might be useful at the time then they're not going to make the effort. And I guess that's the situation almost everybody is in when they find they're not receiving emails due to false positive spam filtering. So it's basically a terrible situation for everyone :( At least we have these magic solutions like MailChip or MailJet (what I use because the free plan fits my usage pattern) so you could turn to something like that if you really had no luck chasing the spam list company.

david-given 11y ago

> However, what is wrong is when a business can demonstrate that it is not engaged in such practices, yet the third-party provider still refuses to cease penalizing them. They don't have any responsibility to help you do business. Comcast and your recipients are not required to accept your email. It's in their interest to do so, of course, because that's what their customers are paying them to do so... but their customers are also paying them not to accept email, because most email is spam, and they don't want to receive that. Email is not a common carrier medium. You can't demand people accept your traffic. It just doesn't work like that. > The ads I referenced are occasional sponsorships by businesses[...] ...which means, unfortunately, that people are paying you to send advertisements by email, which means that you're in the email advertising business. Which means that people will automatically assume you're malicious. Which sucks, but...

unclebucknasty 11y ago
>They don't have any responsibility to help you do business No, but in the course of doing their business, this third party cannot wrongfully interfere with our business. It's a key distinction that you are missing. As to the rest of your comment, you are assuming that the problem was the content (advertising). However, I have stated at least three times on this thread the actual issue; we were erroneously classified as sending to honeypots and/or defunct addresses.
- david-given 11y ago
  > No, but in the course of doing their business, this third party cannot wrongfully interfere with our business. Um... they're an email filtering company, and you're an email sending company. Interfering with your business is their business! That's what Comcast is paying them to do --- Comcast want your business interfered with! > As to the rest of your comment, you are assuming that the problem was the content (advertising). I'm afraid you've missed my point here. The content is important, because having advertising in the content means that they will have already written you off as a reputable company. I'm pretty sure the conversation at their end went something like: A. Hey, Bob, I've just got an email from someone claiming we shouldn't be blocking their email, but they're on the honeypot list. B. Sigh. Again? Do we have one of their messages? A. Yup. Here. B. <spends two seconds skimming message> It's got advertising in it. They're a spammer. Screw 'em. (It may not even have gone that far. I have no idea what format your newsletters are in, but if they score badly they may not even have bothered to look at them.) My point is: you may not be a bad guy, but to an awful lot of people in the SMTP industry, you're going to look just like one.