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Spamhaus: MCI Makes $5M A Year In Spam Profits
An anonymous reader submits "According to a new Spamhaus report, MCI makes $5 million a year hosting spammers and illegal spamware. MCI/UUNET has long topped the Spamhaus spam supporting ISPs list, with nearly 200 active SBL entries. MCI even took on spammers such as iMedia, when they were terminated by Savvis in their half-hearted response to leaked pro-spam memos."
I assume some spamware uses zombie networks to send spam. Surely that's illegal.
I'm not defending MCI/UUNET, or even sure if this is the same MCI that this story is about, but an MCI's AUP:
Email Sending unsolicited mail messages, including, without limitation, commercial advertising and informational announcements, is explicitly prohibited. A user shall not use another site's mail server to relay mail without the express permission of the site.
Which is strange because in the article it mentions "MCI is the only American, and indeed only Western network, where this spam support activity is 'not against our policy,'".
Or does MCI just post that as it's AUP on it's site to cover it's back if it wants to close an account for spamming in the future, or to comply with possible regulations etc?
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What do you expect? Worldcom/MCI was run by criminals. Their former CEO, Bernie Ebbers, is on trial right now in New York for fraud and conspiracy.
The part of the AUP that you are quoting only prohibits the sending of spam. The article is talking about "spam support" which includes other things, such as web site hosting.
From the article:
"MCI Worldcom's official position on the issue is that MCI can't stop their spam gangs selling proxy hijacking spamware from MCI's network as that would be 'censoring' the distribution and sale of illegal proxy hijacking software.
MCI is the only American, and indeed only Western network, where this spam support activity is "not against our policy". Spamhaus maintains that MCI's 'protected speech' excuses for servicing known spam gangs and proxy spamware distribution sites are dishonest and non-sensical in the face of the Internet's spam epidemic."
No spamming is now specifically LEGAL in the United States thanks to the CAN SPAM bill. You just can't do things like fake reply-to lines and you have to give an opt-out method; there are a few other regulations too that don't come to mind.
The Nigerian thing and viral spam has always been illegal as they constitute fraud and vandalism (repectively). But they aren't usually described as spam and won't ever be effected by legislation or probably anything else other than email filters.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
Those sleazebags make far more than a mere $5 million from spammers. Whenever each of their customers are getting spammed, they're only too happy to send them the bill for extra-bandwidth consumed (plenty of people have T-1 or above high-speed connections that are rated by used bandwidth).
this is the while point.
if MCI won't listen to complaints from non-customers who are victimized by them, the pressure to change needs to come directly from MCI customers.
IOW, RBLs _make_ spam MCI's problem. the more MCI ignores their abusive customers, the more MCI will be blocked, and the more MCI customers will complain to them.
the idea is that either:
1) mci will come to their senses and nuke their spammers, or
2) go out of business after all their customers leave in disgust.
it looks like they're hellbent on 2), especially after their ceo was indicted and their CFO plead guilty to fraud.
I've worked for a major hosting provider, and I can
tell you, hosting spammers is a money-loosing proposition. Our company used to host some spammers, of the "following the letter (but not spirit) of the law", "We're not spammers! <wink-wink nudge-nudge>"
variety. Some of them were huge accounts, including our biggest customer.
None of them were worth it. The spammers themselves were a huge drain on our support dept, and many of our other customers were constantly complaining because of our IP blocks being blacklisted.
Finally, we bit the bullet, and showed all of the spamhouses the door (like I said, including our biggest customer). It was a good, and very profitable, move. Within two months, all of our IPs were off the blacklists, our support costs dropped, and our reputation went up, attracting more customers (and big ones, at that).
Moral of the story:
1) Hosting spammers is a bad idea, for business as well as moral, reasons.
2) (The big point) Blacklists work. Very. Well.
As much as I'd like to agree with your view, things get very tricky if you start doing that.
I work for a large ISP / Hosting company and I have seen on more than 1 occasion where 1 site has had spam complaints from a competitor where the sole intent was to get rid of others selling similar products / services.
Yes most spam is an open & shut case and we'll pull any & everything relating to the spam (including occasions where the only connections was a colo hosting the DNS).