RE: [cobalt-users] SPAM relay bouncing causing mailserver on our network to retry constantly

["Dan Kriwitsky" <list1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
> Your opinion obviously varies to mine, and the way we handle 
> email and SPAM - and that's not a problem - my problem is 
> that our policy with SPAM is to provide our users a way of 
> identifying the spam (changing the subject as MailScanner 
> allows), and to pass the message through - this removes the 
> doubt that a false positive will result in lost business, and 
> puts the onus on the user to filter and ensure any false 
> positives are found, minimizing the exposure you have a 
> hosting provider.

You have no exposure for any actions you take to block spam as long as
you're not promising anything to your users regarding that. At least one
state has given ISPs immunity from liability for anything they do to
block spam. The ISP's, not WPP's, are trying to save disk space and
answer the needs of their users who are being inundated with spam. (See
11/11 Blondie comic strip.) If it's a real problem, I'd suggest asking
those users who have an ISP that is blocking spam to switch from
forwarding to POP3. 

As far as false positives, every rejection of mine carries a message
with a URL to report. So far, one report due to a typo in my access
list, otherwise as far as the DNSBL's, I have seen only one report of
what may be called a false positive in 3 years. And, it turned out not
to be a false positive as the customer found out from his contact that
her boss was a porn spammer on the side which led to their listing.

> If *ANY* hosting provider simply bounces 
> email on the basis that it has been  identified as SPAM, they 
> are exposed to liability for lost emails which are 
> incorrectly identified as SPAM.

No, they're certainly not. If you can cite any court ruling in a case
where an ISP has been held liable for blocked email I'd love to see it.

BTW, SPAM is a trademark of Hormel. Junk email is spam.

-- 
C2003 Dan Kriwitsky

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