Re: Comcast blocking mail to its customers

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
Date: October 15, 2008 12:38:23 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, "Livingood, Jason" <Jason_Livingood () cable comcast com 
>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:    Comcast blocking mail to its customers

I have to say I appreciate Jason Livingood's responsiveness in this
matter.  It's hugely refreshing considering what happened last year with
RST injection being spun as some kind of "slowing" of heavy users.

The area of spam filtering is contentious.   Clearly spam imposes costs
on everyone in the delivery chain, and the solution is not at all
obvious.  Some of us depend on having our mail delivered, so we are
frustrated with the seeming vigilantism of some in the email community
to overreach and punish bystanders and neutral businesses.   I still
think Comcast is doing some of that, but it's clear they are trying to
avoid it, given their view of what an appropriate AUP for mail should  
be.

My view is that an appropriate AUP for email should be similar to that
of a common carrier or the USPS.  It's a critical service these days.
Using robotic methods or wholesale IP shutoffs to dump presumptive spam
into the trash is not acceptable for such a service.

The ultimate solution must include multiple activities.   First, mere
"unwantedness" should not empower end users acting in concert to shut
down a forwarding service or a mail posting agent.  Due process is
necessary.   If  a new law is needed, it should be written - and bulk
marketers seeking a zero cost vehicle to harass customers without the
ability to refuse them should not be allowed in the Congress's "lobby".

Again, I think on this matter there is not a crisp line.  Comcast and
mail forwarding services may have to work out a better protocol than the
current one (while not imposing a burden on mail forwarders that puts
them out of business due to monopoly powers of Comcast and its
commercial peers).

David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: "Livingood, Jason" <Jason_Livingood () cable comcast com>
> Date: October 14, 2008 9:23:12 PM EDT
> To: <dave () farber net>, "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Subject: RE: [IP] Re:   Comcast blocking mail to its customers
>
> For IP -
>
> I was disappointed to read the note on the DynDNS website (link  
> forwarded to IP below), but applaud their plans to reduce the amount  
> of spam that they send.  Also, over the past several years, they  
> have made a concerted effort to reduce this spam, which has been  
> evident in their steadily improving SenderBase scores - which I  
> think is great as well. In terms of DynDNS's forwarding and mail  
> relay services, I have confirmed that they are signed up for our new  
> mail sender Feedback Loop (FBL).  The FBL enables a sender to  
> understand what messages may have been reported as spam by our  
> users, so that they can work to improve deliverability.
>
> Comcast routinely filters spam for our email users, and most of this  
> is automated and is often based on user-reported spam.  It is in our  
> customers' best interest, and therefore our interest, to achieve  
> good deliverability from large senders like this, as well as banks  
> (statements), e-commerce websites (sales receipts, shipping  
> notices), web portals (content alerts), etc.  To that end, we have a  
> special web site for such senders at http://postmaster.comcast.net,  
> which includes the ability to signup for the Feedback Loop mentioned  
> above.  It also includes a detailed list of best practices to avoid  
> being blocked for spam, among other things.
>
> Looking at a recent day this month when we blocked a number of the  
> DynDNS sending IPs, approximately 50% of messages from their servers  
> were flagged as spam by our system.  So to be clear, this is by no  
> means "wholesale blocking of all mail intended for customers from a  
> particular intermediate distributor, merely because they route it  
> through an external service that adds value."  This is blocking the  
> IPs of servers that are sending what appears to us to be a large  
> percentage and volume of spam.
>
> We'll continue to work with DynDNS (as well as other large senders)  
> to try to improve deliverability to our mutual customers.  I plan to  
> reach out to them personally to discuss this issue at their  
> convenience.
>
> Regards
> Jason Livingood
>
> Internet Systems
> National Engineering & Technical Operations
> Comcast
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
> Sent: Tue 10/14/2008 9:03 PM
> To: ip
> Subject: [IP] Re:   Comcast blocking mail to its customers
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: "Livingood, Jason" <Jason_Livingood () cable comcast com>
> Date: October 14, 2008 3:57:46 PM EDT
> To: <dave () farber net>, "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Subject: RE: [IP] Comcast blocking mail to its customers
>
> Comcast routinely filters spam for our email users, and most of this
> is automated based on user-reported spam.  It is in our customers'
> best interest, and therefore our interest, to assure good
> deliverability from large senders like this, as well as banks
> (statement emails), etc.  We also have a special web site for such
> senders at http://postmaster.comcast.net, which includes the ability
> to signup for a Feedback Loop so that a sender understands what
> messages may have been reported as spam by our users.
>
> I will investigate this now with my mail team and provide an update.
>
> Regards
> Jason Livingood
>
> Internet Systems
> National Engineering & Technical Operations
> Comcast
>
> From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 3:07 PM
> To: ip
> Subject: [IP] Comcast blocking mail to its customers
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
> > Date: October 14, 2008 1:45:19 PM EDT
> > To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> > Subject: Comcast blocking mail to its customers
> >
> > I am a happy user of DynDNS's Mailhop BackupMX service.   Just got
> > the following related to Comcast's blocking of inbound mail from
> > DynDNS's Mailhop Forward service.  Wholesale blocking of all mail
> > intended for customers from a particular intermediate distributor,
> > merely because they route it through an external service that adds
> > value.
> >
> > While this doesn't affect me personally, it represents a "reach" on
> > the part of Comcast.  The "Mailhop Forward" service allows a user to
> > have mail directed to him personally at another domain (foo () bar com)
> > to be directed to his comcast.net mailbox.  As such it is like the
> > "forwarding" that I do with my MIT Media Lab mail to my "reed.com"
> > mailbox (hosted on a service provider).
> >
> > Comcast is, in this case, rejecting its own users' specific choice
> > of mail delivery path.   Do they plan to do this for other
> > forwarding services? What is the competitive rationale for blocking
> > supposed "spam" that the users have elected to receive (and
> > presumably delete once they determine they are, in fact, spam)?
> >
> > From a legal point of view: Spam is defined as  "unwanted commercial
> > email" - it is NOT "bulk" mail (bulk mail includes such things as
> > College Acceptance Letters to a whole class of accepted students).
> > Comcast's ability to determine "unwantedness" against its own
> > customers' expressed interests seems to be the overreaching issue
> > here.
> >
> > Did Comcast issue a statement to its users that warns them of this
> > tinkering with the mail addressed to them?
> >
> >
> >
> > -------- Original Message --------
> > To: dpreed () reed com
> > Subject: Comcast and MailHop Forward
> > From: DynDNS Lists <automailer () dyndns com>
> > Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:23:14 -0400
> >
> >
> >
> > Dear DynDNS MailHop Forward Customer,
> >
> > As you may already know from our previous communications, our DynDNS
> > MailHop Team has been working with Comcast over the past year to
> > better the
> > quality of mail delivery to comcast.net email addresses from our
> > MailHop
> > Forward system. The DynDNS MailHop system experiences regular
> > problems when
> > trying to promptly delivery e-mail to comcast.net e-mail addresses
> > because
> > Comcast believes that we are originating and sending comcast.net e-
> > mail
> > addresses large amount of SPAM.
> >
> > This is simply not true, rather, MailHop Forward regularly receives
> > SPAM,
> > which we scan with Spam Assassin to tag messages as such, and
> > depending
> > upon customer preference, may forward to Comcast. Comcast, on the
> > other
> > hand, ignores this tagging and believes that we are sending SPAM,
> > which
> > leads to the eventual block of our servers.
> >
> > We have worked with Comcast to come to reasonable compromise on how  
> > to
> > increase the reliability of e-mail delivery to comcast.net email
> > addresses,
> > but have not reached a workable solution. For most DynDNS MailHop
> > Forward
> > customers, we permit the customer to filter e-mail according to
> > their own
> > needs. However, as an intermediate email forwarding provider,
> > ignoring our
> > SPAM tagging efforts, Comcast's policy is to continue blocking our
> > mail
> > servers on a regular basis.
> >
> > Because of the restrictions that Comcast has in place we are making a
> > change to our MailHop Forward Service, which will affect only those
> > addresses that forward to a comcast.net email address. As of
> > November 1st;
> > any MailHop Forward email to a comcast.net email address will be SPAM
> > tagged if the message is given a SpamAssassin score of 6 or higher,
> > and
> > will be automatically discarded if given a score over 10. These new
> > automatic settings will only apply to forwards to Comcast email
> > addresses;
> > you will be able to customize settings for other forwards. By
> > reducing the
> > amount of forwarded SPAM, we believe that our reliability of
> > delivery to
> > comcast.net email addresses will significantly increase.
> >
> > For more information regarding this issue; see our page:
> >
> > http://www.dyndns.com/support/kb/comcast_and_mailhop_forward.html
> >
> > If you have questions regarding this issue, we have created a forum
> > topic
> > regarding this issue:
> >
> > http://dyndnscommunity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=904
> >
> > If you run into any trouble because of these hard coded settings on
> > our
> > side; you can re-route your MailHop Forward alias to a non-Comcast
> > email
> > address or contact Comcast directly at 1-800-COMCAST and encourage
> > them to
> > reconsider their policies.
> >
> > Thank you, The DynDNS MailHop Team at Dynamic Network Services
> > Incorporated
>
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