Apparently Verizon Didn't Learn The Cost Of Overly Aggressive Spam Filters
from the short-term-memory-loss dept
It really was just three weeks ago that the news came out that Verizon agreed to settle a class action suit brought against the company for being too aggressive in blocking spam. Apparently, what the lawyers agreed to hasn't filtered back to those in charge of handling the spam filters (perhaps it was caught in their own spam filter), as the company is now being accused of turning on (oh yes, once again) an overly aggressive spam filter leading to many problems for users not getting important, legitimate, emails. It's great that Verizon wants to curb spam for its users -- but being overly aggressive without any way to opt-out or check the filter is clearly problematic for people who expect to be able to get all of their legitimate emails. Update: Verizon is now claiming that this was simply a glitch with their spam filters -- and it's now been fixed. However, anyone from Yahoo, America Online, MSN, Google, Roadrunner and a few other ISPs who tried to email someone with a Verizon.net email address over the past few days might want to try to resend that message.![Hide This Hide this](https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/topclose.png)
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Verizon Blocking Email is Unacceptable
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Spam filters...
I have clients based in Niagara Falls. At one point, after they sounded the alarm, I found out that none of their outgoing email was being delivered. It turned out that a spam filter was seeing "Niagara" in the signature as a misspelling of "Viagra" and classifying all their mail as spam. This is just one example of many I know (I have an Internet consulting firm).
I no longer consider email a reliable form of communication because of this very issue. It is fine for simple relatively unimportant correspondence back and forth, but for anything that is very important, an alternate method of message delivery should be used.
Unfortunate, really.
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Verizon is A Monster
As far as I am aware, all of these comapanies fall under the same corporate leadership, and of even more concern, their company stock is not available for public trading, either...
Don't ask me how I know this, I could tell you or I'll have to kill you.
In my opinion, the whole organization is suspect as a geographic monolopy on the landline portion, and a monopoly on the Telcom industry as a whole. I know of plenty of small ISPs wiped out by thef fact that they are forced to resell ADSL through the landline service alone.
This discourages progress and competition in the industry, as without publicly tradable stock and heavy dominiation under one large bureucratic Telcom Giant, small comanies die, along with the essential ideas of Captilistic competion and innovation.
Of cours that could be the subject of an entirely different article. I doubt we'll be seeing any anti-trust action soon anyhow [politics].
In the end, the consumer bears the burden, along with the economy, and employees. It 'tis a Monster.
--Professor HighBrow
(not trying to be funny this time)
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Re: Verizon is A Monster
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I missed out on being able to help people and other events I should have been made aware of.
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How to kill the medium of email
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Overly *stupid* spam filters, really
Verizon refuses to use them.
Verizon also, by the way, refuses to lift a finger to do anything about the unceasing torrent of spam from their own network -- they rank (roughly) 5th in the world in terms of spam volume as a result of their own incompetence.
If you're a Verizon customer, I recommend arranging to receive and send your mail from a responsible third party, as Verizon is utterly hopeless.
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Re: Overly *stupid* spam filters, really
Agreed; However, anyone who has ever worked for Verizon knows that they have NO Control over the Big V's policies. It is not they employees' fault, it is the monolithic bureucracy that Verizon Telcomm has become, and those at the top that sit on their silly rich asses that are really to plame.
IMHO
-Prof.
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What Spam Filter?
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Don't use your ISP's email -- DOH!
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Re: Don't use your ISP's email -- DOH!
I have several domains and use a service that cleans the junk but still lets me review it. Postini is the name of the service and they do a great job.
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Agree with 10 above
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Best solution to date:
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Babies, I tell you!
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Filtering is OK but...
- Determine if a message is probably SPAM
- Mark that probable SPAM as such (insert "SPAM:" into the subject line, put it into a SPAM folder, etc.)
- Allow the user to deal with the stuff you've helpfully marked in their own way.
Without doing this, the filtering becomes censorship, and hints that Verizon (or any other ISP) is making decisions about what you should and should not see. This is not a good situation, and people should agressively resist any attempt on having an ISP censor what they read or write.[ link to this | view in chronology ]
go to yahoo
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Re: go to yahoo
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A) Use gmail. they have good spam protection
Also as a user we have responsibilities. Have an email address which you use for 'random stuff'.
Example: When i sign up for web sites such as e-greetings and others, which i know will sell my address i use a specific account.
I then have another address (gmail ofcourse) which i tell my friends and family to send emails on, generated only by them and not via a website.
This i believe also helps reduce a lot of spam, as i am sure we all already knew
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lies....
A) They did it intentionally
B) the guy setting it up didnt know what he was doing.....
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Shove it up your Verizon
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Verizon blocks their competitor's mail servers
Landline phone technology and long distance charges will soon become obsolete terms similar to terms like 2-party line and switchboard. And the legacy phone monopolies are not going to go away quietly or ethically.
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No...it's NOT 'fixed'...
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Looks like the problem is back...
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Switching ISP
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FYI I am forced to use Verizon's smtp server because I use FIOS and Verizon won't let me use the smtp server of the company that provides my pop service.
This is an example of Verizon killing a great product for an idiotic reason. I'm trying to fight spam too! But according to Verizon I either must allow myself to be flooded with spam--or switch back to cable. It's nuts!
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