Paradise junk e-mail filter blamed for lost messages

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Most internet users agree that mass unsolicited commercial e-mail, otherwise known as "spam," is a growing problem, but sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease.

So says Aucklander Julian Sorrenson, a former Paradise customer who claims a spam blocking service used by the Wellington internet service provider caused the loss of legitimate e-mails.

Mr Sorrenson first noticed the problem when he realised that messages sent by a friend in Melbourne who runs his own mail server were not getting through.

"When I asked Paradise what was going on they replied that they had a filter that blocked spam and some of my personal e-mail was getting blocked as well."

Mr Sorrenson told Paradise that he would rather receive spam than risk losing important e-mails.

"Any spam filtering should be an option for the customer and not compulsory."

But Paradise refused to change its policy, noting that Mr Sorrenson was the first customer to complain about the inability to opt out of the filter.

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few in this case," wrote general manager Shane Cole.

He told the Business Herald that Paradise did not block mail but it did block mail servers that were known sources of spam.

It was "entirely possible" that someone trying to send a legitimate message to one of Paradise's customers would not get through, said Mr Cole.

A sender blocked in this way would normally receive a message directing him or her to the California-based Mail Abuse Prevention System (Maps), one of several organisations that maintain a blacklist of suspect mail servers. According to Paradise, it is very easy for a mail server owner to be removed from the blacklist by correcting the server's configuration so that it cannot be used to relay spam.

But Mr Sorrenson said it had taken his Australian friend several weeks to realise something was wrong, and he suggested the reason Paradise had not received more complaints was that most users were simply unaware of the missing e-mails.

While Paradise claims that more than half the ISPs in New Zealand use similar filters, not all such services are compulsory.

David Mill, at Manawatu Internet Services, which uses the Open Relay Behaviour-modification System (Orbs), confirmed that users could choose between filtered or unfiltered e-mail.

Mr Sorrenson has cancelled his account with Paradise and switched to Xtra, which has assured him it does not use a spam filter.

But AboveNet, Xtra's upstream provider in the United States, certainly does. So while e-mails to Mr Sorrenson from New Zealand will not be blocked, the same cannot be said for overseas ones.

Links:

www.mail-abuse.org

www.orbs.org