AOL and their FBL reports getting out of control so is AOL

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This web hosting thread started by felosi 0n 26 October 2009

We have been having some issues and confusion about AOL mail and their FBL lately.

Basically we received the reports just like any other. We know if we get enough of these per user/domain/server or whatever that the network may null route our ip address. We notice that nearly all we have received lately are for legit forum and newsletter email.

So I had my tech send out a mass email to our users suggesting them to avoid sending mail to AOl and we explained the problems that can arise from doing so or if a malicious user abuses their system. One of my users had posted this on their forum and then for reasons I will never know pmed the link to AOLmail on twitter. Once AOL mail guy – Becker seen this he must have contacted out network right away and demanded the client’s forum be shut down because it was.

When I get online the client’s ip was null routed and I got frantic emails from my network wanting me to contact them ASAP. It was all about the AOL mail thing. They did not like the email I sent my users and claimed it was all false. It turns out the only thing posted in the announcement that was wrong was about AOL sharing their RBL’s, everything else was true.

I had to send out a secondary email to my users which was basically a sanitized version of what I first told them. The truth still remains and was even verified from my network that if you get enough of these reports in a short amount of time or get lots over time then service interruption and blacklists can occur.

Why would anyone risk outages and blacklistings just to send mail to AOL? I know I wouldnt. It also amazes me that AOL would want to shutdown a website and an entire hosting company because someone suggested their users not send mail to AOL because of their easily abused system. Instead of contacting me or the user of the forum directly AOl goes running to network abuse. How does such a thing even warrant that action? If he was genuinely concerned about user’s views of AOL mail policy wouldnt he want to contact the users and/or hosting company? No, they want to demand shutdowns. Simply amazing such a big company would do that. Knowing that any network would be intimidated by them, probably threatening complete blacklistings when AOL wants something down it usually and has this situation has showed me – goes down.

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