North American Network Operators Group
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Re: AOL scomp

  • From: Vinny Abello
  • Date: Tue Mar 01 09:32:30 2005 
At 08:17 AM 3/1/2005, Jim Segrave wrote:
On Thu 24 Feb 2005 (12:40 -0500), [email protected] wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 12:28:58 EST, Matt Taber said:
> > It's too bad that about 1/3 of the reported mails are valid opt-in lists.
>
> Proof that any network management or security or anti-spam scheme that implies
> end users with functional neurons is doomed from the get-go.
>

I don't understand this complaint - we process AOL TOS Notifications
daily and I find perhaps 1 in a hundred or so are not valid complaints.
I can attest that we do not see the same here as you are seeing (1 in 100). I'd agree more with the 1/3 being stupid AOL users reporting regular messages that were either forwarded from their own account that we host to their AOL account or mailing lists that they signed up for as spam. In fact, I read an interesting email last night that was from AOL scomp because someone with an AOL email address was tired of arguing with someone else they know via email so they just reported it as spam... not realizing that we get a copy of it and are now privy to a personal feud among family members or friends. <sigh> The majority of them though, are messages from lists that they signed up for themselves and don't understand how to get off the list (despite the fact it's written at the bottom of every message to the list with a link). If you run some high volume lists you'll start seeing dumb reports from AOL scomp. My impression is that many AOL users think that feature is for deleting mail. I've not seen AOL software in years, but maybe if AOL put some sort of warning when they submit these messages... Maybe it's just the user base @ AOL that our mail servers deal with. :)

Otherwise, I think that it can be helpful in identifying issues. Just my $0.02.

Vinny Abello
Network Engineer
Server Management
[email protected]
(973)300-9211 x 125
(973)940-6125 (Direct)
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