(4 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
Loading ...UPDATE: just received word over an hour ago that comcast has lifted the block on our IP range. Better late than never. Thanks to comcast, they must have real people, paying attention to things after all.
I’ve never posted work related material to this blog before (my real job, that is), but I have to rant and expose the nonsense going on over at comcast. Maybe I’d be going too far in calling it censorship, but I work for a medical news and information site.
It seems that a few weeks ago they implemented what is called a feedback loop. Basically, it means that if one or more users click a “This is spam” link or button on the comcast webmail website, not only will that email go into the users spam or junk mailbox, but they’ve taken it to another level, and blocked ALL email from our server to EVERY comcast.net mail account holder.
We have a decent number of comcast users that have requested daily news emails from us and are being denied a legitimate piece of email. (BTW, we are a 100% opt-in list and don’t buy or sell addresses to send to) As I said, we’re a medical news website and we don’t sell anything in our emails or on the site.
The outrage in this is that “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.” So denying someone a legitimate, requested email because someone else marked it as spam, is a bad thing.
Despite several attempts to resolve this, comcast is unresponsive. After sever weeks, comcast has not taken any action on our requests. Comcast ignores their users as well. We forwarded to them, copies of email from our users demanding that we restore their medical news email. We’ve also reccomended that our loyal readers contact comcast directly as well. So far, comcast continues ignore their customers and to deny their customers wishes.
I am not in favor of spam, I get several hundred or more spam messages per day that I could do without.
I also get email that is not spam, that like the emails we send out, I have signed up for at various businesses, news or tech websites. Many times I don’t get to read them. Many times I sign up because I think I would like to read them, but it turns out they are not what I expected or just don’t have the time.
As you may know, most users have been taught to NEVER click on the unsubscribe at the bottom of the emails, because you’ll just get more emails.
There’s a good chance some of our comcast.net readers may not remember signing up for our email. Surely some of these comcast.net readers decided our email wasn’t right for them. Maybe some of them clicked the “SPAM” button because its faster, easier and as they’ve been warned, safer for them. Why chance being bothered with an unsubscribe process fraught with the consequence of getting more junk mail (although, I assure you, ours doesn’t sign you up for more mail).
Thanks for listening. If there’s anyone out there in the same boat, please add a comment. I’d love to hear it.
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December 20 2007
Welcome to the world of blacklists. It doesn’t take much to get you banned. The frustrating part of it is the people who report you as spam often signed up for the list willingly.
If someone signs up for your list, and after a while gets tired of your content, rather than hitting the “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of your message, they can filter you by simply hitting “this is spam”. They rarely realize that by doing so they run the risk of ruining your deliverability.
I think you go too far, however, in singling out Comcast. I’ve had this issue with AOL, MSN, and thousands of smaller ISPs around the country.
In one case we found that many of them were using a service called SpamHaus. We contacted the person in charge to get off their blacklist and was told that he would not remove us. His reason had nothing to do with the messages. He simply said he disagreed with the organization as a whole and so we would stay on until we changed our business practices to suit him.
December 20 2007
ISP’s use the number of complaints received via Feedback Loop to determine who it should and should not block.
To be clear, it isn’t just one person clicking “This is Spam” that is getting your email blocked. More like hundreds, if not thousands, of “This is Spam” clicks.
You need to be very clear about how to unsubscribe from your mailing list and make it as easy as possible for your subscribers to un-subscribe. If it is any more difficult than clicking a button, they’re not going to bother, and you’re the one who is going to suffer for it.
You can promise that you’re one of the good guys all you want, but the bad guys make the same promises. How does the end user tell the difference?
Use double opt-in, use email confirmations, and make damn sure your mail servers aren’t popping up on the CBL or any other real-time block lists.
Abuse desks are overworked and understaffed and really couldn’t care less if your newsletter gets to their subscribers if blocking your mail servers results in thousands fewer spam complaints.
December 21 2007
I had this problem with Comcast over a year ago. In my case, we run a forwarding server for alumni and Comcast blocked this server because we forward all mail, including spam mail, to our alumni users. It happened that “too much” of it was spam. The only solution I found, both on their Website and in a conversation with one of their abuse people, was to go to their Website and request them to remove the block. Of course, they could then block you again (and again and again …) and then it’s rinse, lather repeat. The problem only went away when we made a change which resulted in more spam being blocked on the front end, which evidently improved our “spam ratio” enough so that they stopped blocking us. Good luck.
December 21 2007
[...] in his bog, one angry customer said that recently Comcast has upped the ante and will block all email from the [...]
December 21 2007
Comcast has used a blacklist for several years. It is true, only one person needs to report it as spam for your list to be filtered. However, Comcast doesn’t manage the blacklist. They use the Brightmail Anti-spam Subscription service offered by Symantec. When you’re talking to the blacklist admins, you’re talking to Symantec. Blame Symantec for making a poor spam filter. Blame Comcast for buying it.
December 21 2007
I should also mention, AOL/MSN/most ISPs in the US use Brightmail. If one has a problem, most have similar problems. Further, this has been a problem ever since Comcast started using Brighmail many moons ago, and given Comcast’s clear intent to fix or get rid of this filter, I think that you already have your answer on the quality of this company.
December 26 2007
If your newsletter was so important, why not deliver it via a web page that users who want to read it can go to. Oh, not enuff add revenue that way, rather fill up ISP storage to get to the 3 people who actually buy something. If you had to pay $1 delivery charge to ensure delivery to the inbox would you? Probably not
December 26 2007
finortin: we have a website (with ads) and we have a daily news email as well (no ads). Some people like to receive an email with the news headline and a short synopsis of each news item. We offer this upon registration on the site. Its totally optional. Matter of fact registration on our site is optional altogether, our full content is available regardless of registration. So I’m not sure I follow?
Nick
December 27 2007
In that case, to ensure better delivery do the following. Quarterly send an opt in email to your subscriber list. Dont send email to those who dont renew. If someone misses their newsletter they can re-subscribe. This eliminates receivers complaining that your newsletter is spam and you dont get blocked. Remember that more than 90% of all email traffic at this time is spam, so ISP’s are rather active on acting on a spam complaint more than a “But Im not SPAM” complaint.
HTH
January 6 2008
I’ve been having a big problem sending e-mail to a Comcast subscriber -even plain text mail with no attachment is blocked as ’spam’ and his mail to me is ALSO being blocked by Comcast. I’ve reported the issue several times to Comcast but have gotten nowhere. It’s outrageous (and eventually dangerous) that this can happen -talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater -this is the spanish inquisition of the 21st century.
Comcast says my IP is not being blocked, so I don’t know what else I can do…any suggestions?
January 16 2008
Garden Lover…
Hey, this is not completely true, if you do a search in Google you will see why i say that….