End of Forwarding to Comcast

Spam, spam, spam. The never-ending battle continues.

Some may remember about how we stopped allowing email forwarding to AOL last year. Spam that originates elsewhere, passes through Modwest, arrives at AOL, and is then reported to AOL by the recipient as being spam generates a complaint against Modwest as the source of the spam -- even though we were merely a conduit, forwarding mail as per our customer's preferences.

We now know that the same situation affects email auto-forwarded to Comcast, which has a similar policy. In the past month, we've asked Comcast to please resume accepting mail from Modwest customers at least a dozen times. They're usually responsive, but it's becoming an almost daily occurrence. At the moment I write this, nearly 1,000 messages are stuck here at Modwest because Comcast refuses to accept them. We hope to push them through to their final destinations at Comcast by the end of the day, but we need Comcast's cooperation to make that happen.

Therefore, because Comcast's anti-spam policies are regularly causing significant email delays (hours or days) for any Modwest customer who attempts to communicate with any Comcast customer, we cannot allow automatic forwarding to Comcast any longer. We'll soon be getting in touch with customers who rely on Comcast forwarding about their options.

(Incidentally, Yahoo is also blocking most Modwest customer mail at the moment, and we're working on clearing things up with them. UPDATE Feb 24: Yahoo is still blocking us, and not responding to requests for information and resolution.

Update Feb 27: Yahoo has not been terribly communicative but has let the vast majority of deferred messages through, finally.)

We always try to avoid removing features that customers have been using, and we may rescind this policy if other options become available, but we'll be preventing auto-forwarding to Comcast addresses starting next week.

-JM

Comments

[Keith Robinson]

I'm getting increasing pressure from a client about this issue.

It's bad enough when simple communication fails between the website owner and his clients. But it's REALLY bad when a website user pays for something online and is supposed to receive a receipt for his purchase -- but doesn't because he's a Yahoo user. That's pretty serious.

Imagine if a system was set up so that the paying user receives user login details or some other important info by email, and fails to receive them. He could feel cheated and report the website for fraud.

Being blocked by Yahoo or Aol or Comcast may not be Modwest's fault, but the client doesn't see it that way no matter how much I try to explain. The client just says, "If Modwest keep getting blocked, then move the site to another server."

I try to explain that this might just be moving the same problem elsewhere, but honestly I don't know if that's the case. My client swears blind that Network Solutions "guarantee" they will never be blocked by Yahoo, and I'm being pressured to move the site back to NetSol (which is where I moved it away from in the first place!).

I feel like I need some long-term answers to this increasing problem, because it's getting worse and worse. First Aol, now Comcast... and soon Yahoo. Is Modwest treated worse than most other servers? Can NetSol really guarantee they'll never be blocked? If so, how?

Right now I'm searching out alternative servers that "guarantee" similar things. I don't want to change my host at all, but for some clients I may have to.

I'd like a response to this, please, Modwest -- I was going to ask about this through the contact form but thought it might be more relevant and useful here.

[jmasterson]

Keith,

Thanks for your comment and questions.

Comcast, Yahoo, and AOL are all trying to provide the best email experience for their users, but the methods they seem to be using to identify the real source of spam is flawed. We are relatively certain that the majority of the reason we've been blocked by each is due to spam delivered via customer-defined forwarding rules. Unfortunately neither Yahoo nor Comcast has told us anything specific about their reasons for their blocks, despite repeated attempts to communicate with them. Before we changed our policy, we were filling out a Comcast request form to request that email be let through sometimes several times a day -- which didn't always receive a timely response from Comcast.

Comcast's policy is impacting many, many email providers.

For a few examples: http://www.google.com/search?q=forwarded+email+blocked+by+comcast

As for a guarantee offered by any other provider, I can't imagine how any company could guarantee a different company's actions or inactions, so I'd advise your client to get any guarantees in writing before proceeding.

There is a concept of "bonded senders" or "certified email", in which you pay someone extra to ensure that email you send is accepted by (only) participating email providers, but it doesn't help ensure that email which other people send to you gets through, and it's not feasible in a shared hosting environment anyway.