May 2006

I received the following e-mail last month.

>Subject: Coosnet Support Request - I Can't send to Someplace.net e-mails!

>From:  MAILER-DAEMON@mail.completehowto.com

>Subject:  failure notice

>Date:  April 23, 2006 7:14:44 PM PDT

>To:  someone@coosnet.com

 >Hi. This is the qmail-send program at mail.completehowto.com. I'm afraid I wasn't able to >deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I've given up. >Sorry it didn't work out.

><someone@someplace.net>:  Connected to 206.46.232.11 but sender was rejected. Remote host >said: 550 Email from your Email Service Provider is currently blocked by Someplace.net >Online's anti-spam system.  The email  "sender" or Email Service Provider may visit >http://www.someplace.net/whitelist and request removal of the block.

First, completehowto.com is the parent domain for coosnet.com.  Don’t let messages from completehowto.com freak you out.  Eventually, completehowto.com will show case a series of “How To” books, authored by “Yours Truly”.

Second, Q-mail is the program that sorts and delivers e-mail for coosnet.  Don’t let references to Q-Mail freak you out.

You should be freaked out by the last paragraph.  The one that says your Email Service Provider is currently being blocked.   That’s bad news!  If you get a message like this, then I need to know about it.  But more importantly, I need each e-mail user to take some precautions to keep us from being blocked. 

E-Mail providers look at lots of things before they issue a block on email. 

q       They look at the popularity of the domain.  Yahoo, Google, MSN, AOL have hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of users.  They would never block everything coming from any of those addresses.  (Coosnet isn’t that large ~ just in case you were wondering!)

q       They look at the source of the domain.  Xerox, Clorox, Kellogg’s, General Foods, are all well known corporations.  It doesn’t make good business sense to block Fortune 500 companies and large commercial entities.  (Coosnet isn’t on the Fortune 500 list either.)

So why would they randomly block coosnet?  The two most probable causes would be:

q       Someone at coosnet is blanketing the internet with virus infected e-mails.  When enough infected e-mails hit a particular domain, the receiving domain gets tired of dealing with it and refuses to accept email from anyone at coosnet. 

q       Someone at coosnet is forwarding oodles and gobs of  “great e-mails” to a friend who doesn’t want to receive them.  The “Friend”, not wanting to offend the sender, discovers that he/she can forward all unwanted e-mail to their ISP.  The ISP in turn will label ALL mail coming from coosnet as Spam.   Note the word ALL.  It’s not just the offender’s email that is blocked.  It is every email address with the same last name (coosnet.com) that is blocked.  

What can you do to help?

q       If you are not using anti-virus software, please get some.  We recommend AVG.  It is free to home users.  Commercial/Business users can purchase a 2 year license for $40.  I have Commercial/Business copies in stock if you need to race over and pick one up.

q       If you have anti-virus software, please check for current updates and then perform a complete scan of the entire computer.  Quarantine or Delete any offending files.

q       If you like to forward email, please check with the recipients to verify they appreciate receiving the forwards as frequently as you like to send. 

To Happier Computing,

Janet