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AOL Sued For Over-Zealous Blocking
mik writes "America Online
has been sued by CI Host,
a Texas-based hosting company for defamation, interference with
contractual rights and unfair competition. CI Host
has been
awarded a temporary restraining order, though AOL has apparently not complied.
This may be the first such in a series of suits leading up to, perhaps, to class-action status relating to AOL's recent zealotry in
anti-spam policy
resulting in the presumption that shared-hosting providers are guilty (of spamming)
unless proven innocent."
Now we just need to put together some kind of class action suit for them spamming my regular mailbox with those damn CDs
wait a sec, I thought we hated AOL on even numbered days.
Too many zeros, not enough ones
So what do you call getting numerous AOL installation CDs over the years if not spam minus the electronic delivery?
After I have received the wisdom of good teaching, I will untiringly teach all people. - The Teachings of Buddha
C I Host, one of the world leaders in Web hosting and Internet solutions, was awarded a temporary restraining order against America Online
I can't be the only one that finds the concept of an online restraining order more than a little amusing.
The coolest voice ever.
But this is an odd numbered day, so we like AOL.
"But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion"
> So what do you call getting numerous AOL installation CDs?
Untargeted marketing.
The unofficial
"But this is an odd numbered day, so we like AOL. "
Wait a sec. Today's Monday. Is Monday a 1 or a 0?
"Derp de derp."
From: State District Judge Bonnie Sudder jbsudder@state.texas.us
To: legal@aol.com; abuse@aol.com
Subject: AOL, Save Thousands in Under One Minute! Quickest Quote!
Dear AOL,
This is your chance to opt-out of a completely unique program! You May Be Closer (Maybe Hours Away) To Financial Punishments than you think...
* 100% Safe To Take, With Abosultely No Side Effects
* Totally confidential, no one needs to know!
Monopolies don't have to play by a different set of rules - they just can't use that monopoly to unfairly compete... unless you're in the US in which case apparently you can.
Today's Monday. Is Monday a 1 or a 0?
Monday is definately a zero.
Over the past week, AOL has been blocking SMTP from most of our network, and it has caused a LOT of problems. As with any ISP or Hosting provider, you will get problematic users (spammers). These people are scum, we hate them just as /. users hate them. The abuse policy is pretty strict, plus we have a bunch of anti-spam techniques in place (such as a 20 recipient limit in sendmail.cf for shared servers), and things like that, but it's not going to stop some jerk from getting a dedicated server and flooding the world with mail. They're caught pretty quickly and terminiated (and we now subscribe to spamcop's RBL for blocking).
ANYWAY - now that I'm far off subject, let me get back to AOL. We tried calling AOL plenty of times and were hung up on repeatedly. So as a temp workaround, we made a server specifically for relaying mail to AOL. All the servers would relay all mail through it, and when it detected it was blocked, it would change it's base IP and keep on going. Kinda sneaky but a lot of people send email to aol users, and regular good-hearted customers call much more than spammers, so we had to do something. It's always fun listening to a spammer bleed his/her heart out, wanting you to turn them back on...
CI Host has a lot of great people working there. Sometimes the views/decisions of upper management don't make a lot of sense. Such as spamming users to switch service to CI. But I'll shut up before I see an Employee Update email and my badge stops working.
Your days are numbered? ;-)
http://jesus.everdense.com/