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Comcast Blocks Yet Another ISPs E-Mail

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i-can't-heeeeear-youuuu dept.

Nom du Keyboard writes, "Last week Comcast shutdown e-mail forwarding from NameZero entirely. People who have bought private domain names (i.e. yourname@yourdomain.com) and have e-mail forwarding to their current Comcast e-mail account through NameZero aren't receiving it any longer. No warnings — no e-mail. Now, again without warning, they've blocked out The Well, one of the oldest ISPs on the net. And nobody can get through to the Comcast people in charge of this to discuss the issue with them. Not the ISPs being blocked. Not the customers who pay Comcast to deliver e-mail to them. Comcast says they're protecting 10M customers from spam. I am a current Comcast broadband customer and I feel I should have the right to whitelist and receive e-mail from whomever I designate. I don't want as much protection as Comcast is giving me. Is it a basic right to be allowed to receive e-mail from whomever I desire, or does Comcast have the right to censor as they wish?" Last week Comcast was also blocking mail from alum.mit.edu. I (probably among many others) left a complaint on the phone line identified in bounce messages; the block was eventually lifted.

6 of 401 comments (clear)

  1. I think I may have identified your problem... by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 5, Informative


    Mr. Anonymous sez:
    I am a current Comcast broadband customer...


    Not to be snarky, but there's your problem right there.

    Hopefully, you have some sort of alternative broadband provider. I humbly suggest you show Comcast what you think of them with your dollars and avail yourself of one of the alternatives.

    I myself put up with Comcast's antics for quite a while (longer than I intended, actually):
    When I first resolved to switch to WOW, I waited all day for the installer, who was a no-show. When I called to complain, I was told that the installer had in fact shown up, and I was the no-show. I knew this was a lie since not only was I in the house the entire day, the installer failed to tag the door as a no-show (you cable installers out there know what I'm talking about). I was so incensed by this that I cancelled my order, and remained with Comcast for another three whole months. But, eventually, I was forced to switch, after Comcast upped its rates yet again, and tried to make me pay for a service call to replace one of their defective converters.

    I'm with WOW now, and I haven't looked back. Service is far superior, and I'm paying $40 less per month. Ditch Comcast...you'll feel better.
    --
    ____

    ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

    1. Re:I think I may have identified your problem... by hodet · · Score: 4, Informative

      If email is so important to you then why not purchase email service from another provider? I have an account with Simplicato. for $2/month I get IMAP access and 25Mb storage (and ten email forward addresses to my main one). You can purchase more if needed but this is tonnes of space for what I do. I couldn't imagine ever using my ISP email address for anything. Of course you need to register your own domain but big deal.

    2. Re:I think I may have identified your problem... by dolson · · Score: 3, Informative

      There's also free services, like gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc.

    3. Re:I think I may have identified your problem... by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 4, Informative

      "I've NEVER used an email address I've had with an ISP, and would not reccomend it to anyone." And your reasoning behind this is??

      I can't speak for the previous poster, but I can provide you with my reason for doing the same. An ISP provides internet access. If they bundle a mail service and I become dependent upon it, I have just given myself a vendor lock-in that makes it harder for me to move to a better internet provider should one come along. Since e-mail services are dirt cheap and/or free, it makes sense to decouple the two. I've had the same e-mail address for a good 7 years now, ever since I bought a domain. I've redirected it, forwarded it, and hosted my own mail server at various times. Because I'm able to keep the same address, moving to different ISPs in different parts of the country, or even in different countries is a lot easier and I still have all my mail going back 7 years when I need to look something up. It also means, if the ISP is being dumb and uses excessive filtering or places crazy restrictions on it, I don't have to worry, even if they are the only ISP I can access in a given geographic location.

  2. Dreamhost got blocked too by Ambush+Commander · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have a feeling that it's a lot more than just two ISPs.

  3. How to use comcast without using comcast.... by apl73 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I live out in the woods, too far for DSL, and comcast has the only wires capable of broadband (unless I want to get a T1 from Verizon).

    But, Earthlink (which doesn't suck mostly :-) will provide your ISP services in place of comcast. So, my email isn't being filtered by comcast. BTW, since I only have broadband service, I'm paying something like $42/month (I own my own cable modem). The billing is all handled by comcast; but I have an earthlink IP address and name service.

    The only problem's I've encountered were when Comcast "forgot" and (I assume) caused the DHCP server to give me a comcast IP address instead of a Earthlink one. Then, I couldn't connect to the earthlink email server...

    BTW, I also have an alum.mit.edu email address that is set to forward to my
    earthlink address; AFAIK, there were no bounces or glitches.