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AOL, MS & Yahoo Unite On Anti-Spam Initiative
dilaudid writes "FT.com has an article about AOL, Yahoo and MS putting aside their differences to combat spam. An AOL VP is quoted as saying "Our customers are telling us it is the number one problem with the internet." Their intended response is "narrowly-defined federal legislation aimed at so-called "king-pin" spammers" who send the bulk of the mails. "
Did you read the article (or even the /. blurb?)
The groups said they were particularly looking for narrowly-defined federal legislation aimed at so-called "king-pin" spammers whom they believe are responsible for the largest volume and most pernicious of unwanted e-mails.
They're looking to legislate the "spam kings" to death, not block mail from them for their collective subscribers. Funny, however, that they continute to ignore "black hole" lists that are actually quite good at deleting/preventing spam.
That's good. I dont want "black hole" lists at the ISP level.
I dont want providers arbitrarily deciding that some IP block can no longer send me e-mail.
Because then you wind up with some person/comittee with an agenda deciding that I can no longer get e-mail from, say, a group with an opposing point of view. If Bill Gates controlled the black hole list, maybe kernel.org shows up on it. If RMS controlled it, hotmail would show up on it.
It's a bad system, wide open to abuse. Punish the criminals, don't hinder the internet.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Just another personal note on black hole lists. I thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread until somehow my IP ended up on one. My web/email service is on a shared host. The host itself doesn't host any adult content, but the IP that it had recently acquired was listed in the same IP block as pretty much every adult/teen/kiddie porno site you can think of, and most that you can't think of. Ameritech subscribed to the blacklist and so I couldn't forward my domain mail to my ameritech.net account. It was a weekend from hell.
"More organs means more human." - Zim