KB 440

Filtering of Forwarded Email

Article ID: 440
Created: Dec-28-2006

Question or Symptoms

   What filtering does SWCP do for email they forward to my AOL or Comcast account?

Resolution

   AOL and Comcast use a spam filtering method whereby they block any email
   server which sends them a certain amount of spam.

   This causes a problem when we forward email messages for a customer of
   ours to an AOL or Comcast address.  If you receive spam emails, our system
   will forward those to your AOL address along with any "real" emails you
   receive. If AOL looks at these forwarded messages and sees some that are
   spam, they count that as a black mark against the SWCP mail server.

   Of course SWCP didn't originate the spam.  It came from somewhere out
   there in the world.  But AOL can't figure out where the spam really
   originated.  All they can tell is that SWCP's mail server is the one
   that gave it to them, so they count it against SWCP.

   If AOL or Comcast sees more than a few of these spams in a given time
   period, they automatically block SWCP's mail server.  When that happens,
   ALL SWCP customers who try to send mail messages to AOL or Comcast users
   are affected.

   We have taken several steps to mitigate this but we are down to the
   point where we MUST filter forwarded mail which is destined for AOL
   or Comcast.

      ***** ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== *****
      Starting December 28, 2006, we will apply a spam filter to all
      FORWARDED email which is destined for either AOL or Comcast.  The
      filter is somewhat lenient because we don't want to delete good
      messages by mistake, but there is the chance that some legitimate
      messages will be discarded.  THERE IS NO FACILITY FOR YOU TO CHECK
      THE DISCARDED EMAILS FOR MISTAKES.
      ***** ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== *****

   Representatives of both AOL and Comcast have told us plainly that they
   know this policy results in some legitimate email not being delivered
   to their customers, but they are not able to change the policy.
   (Frankly, as someone who knows the pain of running a moderately
   busy mail server, I don't blame them.  They must be getting crushed
   under the staggering spam load.)

   We're not happy with this situation, but this is the least of several
   possible evils.  If this situation is untenable for you, there are
   a couple of options:

   1. Get a different email account from an ISP which does not use the
      same blacklisting policy that AOL and Comcast are using.  That may
      be hard.  For example, Gmail or Yahoo would be a good choice today,
      but we may well be forced to do the same kind of filtering for those
      ISPs in the future as well.

   2. Establish a POP account on SWCP's system.  This costs $2.50/mo.
      This gives you access to SWCP's spam filter.  You can control the
      level of spam filtering, and any "deleted" messages are saved in a
      spamfile which you can inspect if you think a legitimate message
      has been blocked.  You can either have the legitimate messages
      forwarded to your existing AOL or Comcast account, or you can read
      them directly on SWCP's mail server.


   If you are no longer using the alias,please tell us so we can delete it.
   Defunct and forgotten aliases can result in a lot of spam, so getting rid
   of it would be helpful.

   If you have any questions about this, please feel free to email us or call.
   Thank you,

   SWCP Staff
   help@swcp.com
   505-232-7992
   888-792-7266