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This site was built in response to the totally unreasonable and unworkable spam policies of AOL.
Several of our clients began complaining that they could not deliver newsletters and other opt in mailings to their subscribers. We investigated and found out that our IP address had been blacklisted by AOL.
Before we go any further we should point out that we have a VERY strict no spam policy on our servers, we INSIST that all sites that host with us run legal double opt in mailing lists. We insist they use mailing scripts that can facilitate that and that all newsletters and mailings have clear unsubscribe options. We even join ALL our clients mailing lists to monitor that.
We can say with 100% confidence that all our clients understand and run ethical and double opt in lists.
So after finding out AOL had blacklisted our IP address we began jumping through their hoops to get removed. We signed up for a mailing loop, and had our IP removed from their black list. Confirmed by our clients who said they could once again deliver newsletters to AOL subscribers.
Hey presto 4 days later we are blacklisted again without a single email from AOL or their mail loop. We called them with the error they told us "that error code is assigned to Ip addresses that are about to be removed from the black list" We informed them we had already been removed 4 days previous. The support rep said "that error code is assigned to Ip addresses that are about to be removed from the black list" the monkey just repeated himself.
We asked why we had been re-listed and why we had had no emails from their mail loop when an aol user reported one of our clients for spam. Again the idiot told me what the error message stood for, I could not believe it! The conclusion of that call was "I will escalate this issue to the postmaster team and we will email you". No email ever arrived.
One day after this we got our first mail loop report for spam against one of our clients. The client involved was a jewelry store who runs a fully double opt in list (We know because we installed the mailing script for her). While the mailing loop is next to useless as AOL do not reveal the email address that complained, there was a remove link in the clients newsletter so we just removed that user from her list.
After jumping through all AOL'S hoops again and being removed AGAIN we applied to be white listed and were refused for "bad email history" we asked AOL for copies of reports to prove that, and complaints received against our servers and dates and email texts. They of course could not or WOULD not provide them.
The end result? After hoop jumping several times, checking and double checking that all our clients have legal opt in lists, and several international phone calls to the postmaster section who didn't seem to care, we decided that AOL were not worth the hassle.
Since then after much research we see that there are many ongoing legal cases against AOL for non delivery of legitimate email affecting business. I personally have never seen so many horror stories about an ISP from fraudulent billing to mail delivery lawsuits. This again confirms our attitude that AOL are just not worth working with.
In response to all this and prompted by an action of our clients we came up with a new plan of attack for this problem. AOL are not willing to listen AT ALL to the webmasters they are affecting negatively with their stupidness, perhaps they will listen to their users.
Several of our clients started adding notes to their mailing list sign up pages "Sorry no AOL email addresses" for the simple reason they didn't want their mailing database clogging up with email addresses that could not be delivered to.
We thought why not create a page for them to link to, to tell the AOL user why their email was not accepted for a service or newsletter. Then we thought while we are at it maybe we should tell AOL users that AOL are deleting emails addressed to them without consulting them first.
While we do not want to penalize AOL users (after all they have done nothing wrong) it seems to be the only way to move forward with this. In the same way AOL have the right to decide to block our IP addresses we also have the right not to work with AOL. We recommend you exercise that right.
Please feel free to link to the AOL blacklisted by websites page from anywhere on your site that requires email address input. There are links and buttons on the "take action" page of the webmasters section.
There is no point us promoting this site directly to AOL users they will never get the email. But a whole load of them will see it when they start getting refused access to sites or newsletters and maybe, just maybe, if enough of them complain to AOL that they are being refused access to sites AOL will listen to their users and concentrate on more effective filtering of spam rather than their gung ho blacklist policy.
That is if the user does not take our advice to get another email account which we strongly promote!
Should you be an AOL member of staff reading this here's our idea : IMPROVE YOUR FILTERS, LET YOUR USERS DECIDE WHO THEY WANT TO RECEIVE MAIL FROM WITHOUT HAVING THE ARROGANCE TO MAKE DECISIONS FOR THEM, AND STOP BANNING ALL THE SITES ON A SERVER FOR THE SPAM OF A SINGLE SITE!
This site was built in response to the totally unreasonable and unworkable spam policies of AOL.
Several of our clients began complaining that they could not deliver newsletters and other opt in mailings to their subscribers. We investigated and found out that our IP address had been blacklisted by AOL.
Before we go any further we should point out that we have a VERY strict no spam policy on our servers, we INSIST that all sites that host with us run legal double opt in mailing lists. We insist they use mailing scripts that can facilitate that and that all newsletters and mailings have clear unsubscribe options. We even join ALL our clients mailing lists to monitor that.
We can say with 100% confidence that all our clients understand and run ethical and double opt in lists.
So after finding out AOL had blacklisted our IP address we began jumping through their hoops to get removed. We signed up for a mailing loop, and had our IP removed from their black list. Confirmed by our clients who said they could once again deliver newsletters to AOL subscribers.
Hey presto 4 days later we are blacklisted again without a single email from AOL or their mail loop. We called them with the error they told us "that error code is assigned to Ip addresses that are about to be removed from the black list" We informed them we had already been removed 4 days previous. The support rep said "that error code is assigned to Ip addresses that are about to be removed from the black list" the monkey just repeated himself.
We asked why we had been re-listed and why we had had no emails from their mail loop when an aol user reported one of our clients for spam. Again the idiot told me what the error message stood for, I could not believe it! The conclusion of that call was "I will escalate this issue to the postmaster team and we will email you". No email ever arrived.
One day after this we got our first mail loop report for spam against one of our clients. The client involved was a jewelry store who runs a fully double opt in list (We know because we installed the mailing script for her). While the mailing loop is next to useless as AOL do not reveal the email address that complained, there was a remove link in the clients newsletter so we just removed that user from her list.
After jumping through all AOL'S hoops again and being removed AGAIN we applied to be white listed and were refused for "bad email history" we asked AOL for copies of reports to prove that, and complaints received against our servers and dates and email texts. They of course could not or WOULD not provide them.
The end result? After hoop jumping several times, checking and double checking that all our clients have legal opt in lists, and several international phone calls to the postmaster section who didn't seem to care, we decided that AOL were not worth the hassle.
Since then after much research we see that there are many ongoing legal cases against AOL for non delivery of legitimate email affecting business. I personally have never seen so many horror stories about an ISP from fraudulent billing to mail delivery lawsuits. This again confirms our attitude that AOL are just not worth working with.
In response to all this and prompted by an action of our clients we came up with a new plan of attack for this problem. AOL are not willing to listen AT ALL to the webmasters they are affecting negatively with their stupidness, perhaps they will listen to their users.
Several of our clients started adding notes to their mailing list sign up pages "Sorry no AOL email addresses" for the simple reason they didn't want their mailing database clogging up with email addresses that could not be delivered to.
We thought why not create a page for them to link to, to tell the AOL user why their email was not accepted for a service or newsletter. Then we thought while we are at it maybe we should tell AOL users that AOL are deleting emails addressed to them without consulting them first.
While we do not want to penalize AOL users (after all they have done nothing wrong) it seems to be the only way to move forward with this. In the same way AOL have the right to decide to block our IP addresses we also have the right not to work with AOL. We recommend you exercise that right.
Please feel free to link to the AOL blacklisted by websites page from anywhere on your site that requires email address input. There are links and buttons on the "take action" page of the webmasters section.
There is no point us promoting this site directly to AOL users they will never get the email. But a whole load of them will see it when they start getting refused access to sites or newsletters and maybe, just maybe, if enough of them complain to AOL that they are being refused access to sites AOL will listen to their users and concentrate on more effective filtering of spam rather than their gung ho blacklist policy.
That is if the user does not take our advice to get another email account which we strongly promote!
Should you be an AOL member of staff reading this here's our idea : IMPROVE YOUR FILTERS, LET YOUR USERS DECIDE WHO THEY WANT TO RECEIVE MAIL FROM WITHOUT HAVING THE ARROGANCE TO MAKE DECISIONS FOR THEM, AND STOP BANNING ALL THE SITES ON A SERVER FOR THE SPAM OF A SINGLE SITE!