[Coco] Re: Bounces

[BradleyJ2 at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/2/2004 2:55:44 PM Eastern Standard Time, wb8tyw at qsl.net writes:

> 
> 
> In article <5.1.0.14.0.20040102120847.00bcfe68 at pop.bayou.com>,
> Roger Taylor <rtaylor at bayou.com> writes:
> >>
> >>Member: bradleyj2 - at - aol -dot - com
> >>Please check your spam filtering
> >>Still receiving 10+ bounces from your address daily
> >
> >
> > I thought a spam filter just deleted suspicious e-mails.
> 
> An end user spam filter can only tag, move another folder, or delete
> what it thinks is spam.  It does not have the information it can trust
> to generate a bounce.  And to generate a bounce it must spoof a role
> account for the domain.
> 
> No client side spam filter should ever be generating bounces.  It is
> abuse and against the TOS of every ISP that I am aware of.  Those bounces
> almost always go to non-existant addresses or innocent users.
> 
> A spam filter at the mail server can issue reject codes before the
> SMTP transaction is over.  Generally the reject codes will explain why
> the mail is rejected.  In comparing the several mail servers that deliver
> e-mail to me, the ones most accurate in eliminating spam pay the most
> attention to the source I.P. address and the least attention to the content.
> 
> It may be that AOL can check a user's spam settings that early, but that
> increases the complexity of the mail software.
> 
> AOL is/was generating bounces after the SMTP transaction is over, but
> have posted on the SPAM-L mailing list that they are stopping that
> practice because it is abusive and are converting to only use SMTP
> reject codes.
> 
> Based on postings in other forums, AOL seems to be having some
> problems with their global content based spam filtering, and these
> have been going on for a couple of months.  Apparently AOL is fixing
> things on a case by case basis instead of fixing the root cause.
> 
> There is an AOL web site (sorry I do not have the URL) that explains
> what some of their content filtering will reject.

* Snip *

That may be what is happening with my account. A long time ago (AOL version 2.5!) I enabled some kind of SPAM filter on AOL, and that keyword no longer goes anywhere. Calls to AOL tech (non)support haven't helped. From what he's forwarded to me (the bounced messages) it almost looks like AOL is blocking only certain domains...It's always the same people bouncing.

Anyone else have this happen?

- Brad