Elise Ackerman at The Mercury News has this piece today about how Comcast has been blocking email from The Well as spam and how unresponsive the nation’s leading broadband provider has been in resolving the problem. That’s funny, because my company’s email (emediadynamics.com) has been blocked as spam by Comcast too, although I got a quick resolution — more on that at the end.
Comcast says that it’s just protecting its members from unwanted missives.
Mitch Bowling, who heads Comcast’s online business, said a significant volume of spam has been coming from The WELL. He said it was the fourth time The WELL has been flagged for forwarding spam. “At this point we need some good faith from this company that they are going to try to get better” at filtering out spam.
“They don’t understand what is going on,” Williams [Gail Ann Williams, director of communities at Salon.com, which owns The Well] said. “They are not paying attention. I would love to have someone to talk to.”
EFF’s Danny O’Brien also experienced a Comcast spam blocking problem for a server that he set up for a community in Oregon.
Danny O’Brien, activist coordinator at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group founded by three members of The WELL, said the incident highlights the hazard of using blacklists to fight spam.
“The problem is Internet service providers acting as go-betweens, between outgoing e-mail and incoming, and making their own decisions that aren’t clear to their end users,” he said.
What gives with all the blocking? My own experience with Comcast’s spam blocking was puzzling but brief. In May, my emails from emediadynamics.com to comcast.net addresses were bouncing back as spam and I reported the incident to the company’s “abuse” personnel.
Within hours I received the following notification that the spam blocking had been lifted.
Please do not reply to this message.
This is to notify you that your request for removal from the comcast.net blocklist has been received.
The following IPs were found within your request. Below each one, we’ve included the results of our research.
- 65.109.239.61 -
The IP you previously provided has been removed from the Comcast.net blocklist.
After review of the blocking, the IP you submitted was found to have been blocked due to the fact that the majority of the traffic from that IP contained content indicative of spam. If you are not aware of the traffic that could have caused this, we recommend a review of your outbound mail logs and ensuring that all computers connecting to through the submitted IP are clear of any security exploits.
- 69.251.237.181 -
The IP you provided is recognized as a Comcast.net residential network IP. Comcast.net subscribers are not permitted to directly connect to the mail system for delivery. If you are a Comcast Commercial Services customer and need support, please contact support_biz@cable.comcast.com.
Thank You
Comcast Network Abuse and Policy Observance
Here’s the odd thing: I had no evidence on my end that the emediadynamics.com email address was being used for spam. No spammers seemed to have hijacked the server and no bouncebacks came flooding in to indicate that “the majority of the traffic from that IP contained content indicative of spam.”
Clearly Comcast has a problem with the scripts it uses to identify spam, which is an annoying problem at the minimum. With the problem rising to the level of coverage in The Mercury News, it’s time for Comcast to investigate its own problems.
Update: After a conversation with Comcast, I have a better appreciation for how the company’s spam filtering policies could have temporarily blocked my email. Moreover, Comcast claims that it has been trying to work with The Well, one of two companies that hasn’t been willing to show the operator it is making good faith efforts to thwart spammers. See updated post here.
Cynthia Brumfield at 7:18 AM|Comments(0)
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