Comcast Blocks Yet Another ISPs E-Mail 401
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.
Re:I think I may have identified your problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
Say What? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all for blocking spam, but this doesn't sound like a way to reduce spam - it sounds like runaway stupidity. Spamcop makes a lot more sense. Maybe they do that already, and it wasen't enough.
They may want to adjust that "10M customers" figure in the near future.
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
e-mail is not a 'right'.
You are free to terminate your service contract with Comcast and stop paying them, of course.
on basic rights (Score:2, Insightful)
No. Next question?
This is a problem with every ISP I've ever used. (Score:5, Insightful)
What I don't understand is why ISP's can't send me an email every few days listing the subject lines and senders of everything they've blocked, with a link to click on to retrieve the blocked messages.
COMCast (Score:3, Insightful)
Your Rights (Score:3, Insightful)
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?"
Comcast has the right to do whatever the fuck they want with their own network, as long as it is within the TOS contract you signed (which it probably was since it likely said they can change it at will with little to no notice). Also, you as a consumer have the right to ditch Comcast for any other ISP you want (assuming again you weren't locked into a TOS contract). Welcome to capitalism.
What you say? You have no other options for high speed in your area, or you have to keep your @comcast.com email address since it is not portable? Welcome to monopolies.
Re:This is a problem with every ISP I've ever used (Score:5, Insightful)
What I don't understand is why ISP's can't send me an email every few days listing the subject lines and senders of everything they've blocked, with a link to click on to retrieve the blocked messages
Because ISPs don't block IP blocks because they're trying to protect you from spam. They block IP blocks because they're trying to reduce the load on their incoming mail server (and save costs). Implementing a system that tags spam and sends you subject lines would cost money.
The real problem is that email is seen as a loss leader. Everyone expects an ISP to provide email, but they can't charge really anything for it as it's become a commodity. Thus many ISPs try to chince out and provide the bare minimum service. Basically if you want good email service sign up with a service that only does email. I run my own mail server, but I've had good luck with fastmail.fm. Let the ISP provide internet connectivity only and let someone that knows how to do email provide email service.
Re:dreamhost.com has also been blocked (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I think I may have identified your problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
I called up BellSouth, got it all set up, and it's been wonderful. They had the package out to me within 4 days after signing up. My modem got a bit funky - the ethernet jack broke when I was moving it. I called them up, they had a new one out the next day. I get very consistent download speeds, it isn't like with Comcast when I'd get slower than 56k dialup speeds at night, if it worked at all... I easily had 2 second or higher ping times to just about everything.
BellSouth's tech support is much much better too, you call up and you can actually get yourself transferred to someone who knows what they're doing. After the initial install I had a few problems - I missed a filter on our DirectTV unit... They actually put me directly on the phone with the line tech who got it resolved in a very short amount of time.
Go for it, you won't regret it. Just my two cents!
Re:I think I may have identified your problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally I can't come up with a good reason to EVER use an ISP's e-mail address unless you're a total newb or an idiot that requires their tech support to explain how to use e-mail. I can see using their outgoing mail server, but that's a different story altogether. People, wake up: the main reason ISPs provide e-mail addresses is to make it more annoying for you to leave their service.
Re:I think I may have identified your problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Say What? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about protecting the rest of us from spam being sent through zombie hosts on their network!?
I read an article about a year ago that said that over 60% of the mail leaving Comcast's network was spam, Comcast knew it, but said the problem was "too expensive" for them to fix.
I think they need to turn their spam filters around the other way. Block all outgoing mail. That'll fix the spam problem!
Re:FYI (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, most contracts with an ISP are merely to provide you with access to the ISP's systems. They own the systems, they decide what happens. On top of the "contract" (which is usually just a verbal agreement rather than a written document), they also require that you abide by their Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and/or Terms of Service (TOS). The AUP generally states that you can't spam, transfer illegal material, etc., but, it also points out that the ISP isn't responsible for monitoring for that activity. The TOS usually outlines what services you can expect. Both documents generally include a clause that allows the ISP to change those documents, at will, without notice.
Amazingly enough, courts will actually enforce this right. I'll be around in case you need any more corrections of your obviously wrong assumptions. Thank you.
I think the courts will generally side with the ISP in this case, however. The ISP owns the service and they are not denying a customer that service, but denying non-customers from abusing that service. It's a fine line, but at the end of the day, the ISP owns the servers. A lot of it may also depend on the AUP/TOS that was applied to the customers service.
Re:This is a problem with every ISP I've ever used (Score:4, Insightful)
I am absolutely sure that a large proportion of your customers would vehemently disagree with you. Recieving junk mail is an annoyance. Not receiving non-trivial amounts of potential important legitimate mail is a show-stopper.
I take it you give your customers the ability to opt in and out of your shonky anti-spam system?
Re:FYI (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, if you suffered harm (economic or otherwise) because they breached the contract, you can sue them for those damages, because you relied on their contracted promise, and they breached that contract, but if your only harm was not getting an e-mail from your grandma, the judge is going to throw you out. If you're lucky, his parting comments will include a bit of free advice: find another ISP.
Re:Done and done (Score:3, Insightful)
Fucking editors.
Dangerous Precedence (Score:5, Insightful)
I know that Roadrunner blocks email from all of the static IP addresses from my local cable provider without even sending anyone a message, poof - the email just disappears into the ether without so much as a by your leave.
Maybe Comcast has crappy service and/or incompetant technicians but what they are doing amounts to the regulation of free speech. If we all just accept this then how can we trust that we are getting all of the email that is destined for our mailboxes? If we can't trust that all email sent to us through our ISP is getting to us then how can anyone depend on email at all? We might as well go back to using the telephone or physically meeting with people. And I hate dealing with people.
Is it possible that Comcast could be limiting our freedom to associate with whomever we want? I mean, I trust my phone company, I know they wouldn't limit my ability to call other people or give away all of my calling details to say the government despite it being a federal offense or expressly against my wishes. Maybe someone has asked Comcast to just stop emails from certain domains, like nytimes.com or truthout.org, iraq.com or nasa.com. Would we really know?
Can anyone here really tell me that an email they didn't know they were getting didn't get to their inbox? Maybe this has been happening for a while now? Maybe I'm a crazy conspiracy theorist, but if someone was censoring what email gets to people's inboxes wouldn't you think this was how it would start?
Yeah, I'm sure it's Comcast's incompetence and not a freedom of speech thing. Anyone seen where I left my shiny new hat?
JtK
Re:I think I may have identified your problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hopefully, you have some sort of alternative broadband provider.
Dear Mr. Snarky,
Don't you think if I had a good, other alternative that I would have just gone to them instead of complaining to Slashdot. I don't have a good alternative. My other ISP, AT&T, pulled exactly the same crap a few months ago and that's why I left them. This is the problem with a monopoly. I'm 27,000 feet from the Qwest CO, and until someone magically drops a DSLAM next to me I'm rather SOL on DSL. WiMAX ain't here yet either.
And even if I do switch again, there's nothing to say that my new ISP won't pull the same thing next month.
Your apology is accepted.
Re:Their network, they can block anything (Score:3, Insightful)
It is amazing how many people still don't get it into whatever they have for brains that this is not a realistic option for many people. No, dialup is not a realistic option in quite a few cases, no matter how much you want to believe it is, and many people simply have no other alternative.
And yes, having internet access is a requirement for my job, and is used for so many things nowadays that not having Internet access is not a realistic option for many people.
I happen to live somewhere where switching providers is quite an option, but I get out and talk to people enough to know this isn't true for many (without moving to another country or at least to quite far from where they live now and have their income)
Anyway, how about you comning back with your 'then switch to another isp, dumbass' kinda statements when YOU pay the extra cost of getting the place wired up to another ISP, even if that means getting another ISP to provide broadband access in that area?
Re:Their network, they can block anything (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I think I may have identified your problem... (Score:2, Insightful)
Interesting to see if
Re:I think I may have identified your problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
I generally use my ISP provided email as my "junk" address when I need to give an email but don't want to or don't trust who I am giving it to to keep it secret. Best of both world...
...better, but not the best. I create a series of temporary e-mail addresses I hand out to untrusted parties. something like "spam343forusername@domain.net" and send all messages with that format to a bulk mail folder. Then, if I start to receive spam from any given one of them, I can not only delete that alias and stop the spam entirely, but know which company handed out my e-mail address to spammers (by referencing the number with the confirmation e-mail, usually the first mail that account gets). It is simple and works like a charm. Even if you don't have a domain a number of providers have started offering this feature as well.
Re:FYI (Score:3, Insightful)
You typically earn the right to receive that consideration for a fixed period of time, not indefinitely.
If one party becomes unable or unwilling to provide that consideration, the resolution is usually to free both parties from the contract as per its dissolution terms. It is rare for a party to be FORCED to continue providing consideration unwillingly, beyond the contractual term (which, in the case of a cable internet service, might be 24 months at the outset, rolling over to month-to-month at its end).
Is it a basic right? NO! (Score:2, Insightful)
Nope.
People these days get rights and privileges all mixed up. You have no rights whatsoever. You have no rights to receive email at all, you have that privilege by earning the money to pay a service provider to provide a service. It is up to you to select the correct service provider and if that service provider fails to provide that service you may change to another.
Stop bitching about rights and exercise your privilege.
Incidentally, you have no right to freedom, no right to privacy, democracy and no right to protection from a facist government. In the western world most people are lucky enough to currently have the privilege of being able to exercise democratic choice. If you lose that privilege because someone takes it away from you, or you neglect to exercise it, then you have to fight to get it back in the same manner that all those people fought to get it for you in the first place.
Re:This sort of thing really pisses me off (Score:2, Insightful)