I get a lot of spam for many months now from completeweb.net network. SPAMCOP does not report to them since they don't accept it. I reported spam to them directly, and, for a small amount of time, stopped receiving it. But, I am receiving it again. When I tired to report it again to them, I found out they blacklisted our mail server. Not very nice!

So, to me, this makes it very clear they don't care much about spam on their network. So, is there any requirement that a given ISP accept spam reports? Is this legal? Is there any other way I can report this spam, perhaps at a higher level?

What can I do to stop receiving this junk from their network? Yes, I know I can block their mail servers, but, there may be real customers of theirs and I don't want my customers to not be able to get email from good sources.

SpamCop's block list, and block lists in general are based on the principle that you (anyone) have the right to receive, or not receive, email from anyone you chose. So yes, it is legal for them to choose to not receive spam reports from your or SpamCop or anyone else.


I feel your pain. With good and "bad" email coming from the same SMTP does present a filtering problem for which there is not a simple answer. I was on the other end of that problem myself. Because of the reputation of the SMTP I was using, MSN blocked my emails to my son and daughter-in-law.

I had 2 options, get my ISP to cleanup their act, or use another SMTP. On the receiving end you also have 2 options block all email from the offending SMTP including any valid customers (the option MSN chose) or accept the fact you are going to get some spam from this source along with some valid email.

Without a sample of the spam you are receiving, it is hard to give specific advice. It may be possible build filters based on content to exclude the spam. Content filtering also results in false-positives, and false-negatives. There is no foolproof answer.

So, an ISP is permitted to allow spam then and not take any complaints about it. Ok.

The thing I do not get is this then - why does this then allow SPAMCOP to never add them to the spam list. Perhaps I am the only customer that gets endless spam from them? is there a way to get them added to some other spam list then? I don't see why it should not be possible. That would obviously resolve the problem as then they would fix it.

I had a half dozen or so windows opened up, doing research, basically trying to dig up a whole lot of data you didn't bother to provide ..... shut them all down, threw out the mindset of trying to do up yet another reply to this type of query after coming across the following;

spam Control Consulting
.....
When using the correct software with your email system, spam can be reduced to virtually nothing. Take control of your email system back!

Just contact us with your needs for controlling spam, and, we may be able to help. In our email system, we get maybe one or two spam messages a week, and, no false positives in more than a year. We encounter many people who get hundreds per day, rendering their email system almost useless. If you combine spam control with virus elimination before it gets to your inbox, things work much better.
......

Geeze, if you're charging other folks for answers to questions like thise, I don't see why I need to exercise my volunteer status to dig up some pretty simple facts. Off now to help folks that really do need some help.

A Manual report from a webmail or other "throw away" address might be in order.

Good luck!

Geez, lighten up. This is the user supported forum, didn't ask for or expect any answer from you, you act as if I said wazoo, please answer this question. If you do not want to, then, don't, save yourself all that aggravation! I was not asking for the specific instance and therefore no information was omitted, it was a more general question as to what an ISP can or can not do, sorry if you misunderstood or if you feel it was worded imperfectly. Yes, sorting out spam is very easy, that's not the question!

You forum heading says "The primary mode of support here is peer-to-peer, meaning users helping other users. (please remember this at all times!)", perhaps re-read this.

I don't want the network request in the first place. Yes, I can deal with it, deny it at SMTP time, etc. That's all fine and dandy, I don't want the network request in the first place and my question revolves around this. It sounds as if an ISP can do whatever it wants with it's network and allow spam to be sent as much as they want to, and, there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. I had thought there was an acceptable code of conduct somewhere, or, one could appeal maybe to the owner of the network, etc. I obviously don't know what is or is not possible, and, this is my question. Heck, maybe one can even go to their network provider and get them to block the traffic at a higher level, get them to add to some sort of black list, who knows, I am not sure what is or is not possible.

Now, off to those who realize when they respond it is THEIR choice, not mine.

It seems there are insufficient reports against a/any single IP address to have completeweb.net (or rather an IP address of theirs) listed at the moment. They own the complete 216.226.128.0/19 netblock. It is not clear (to me) whether you are receiving spam from their mail server (216.226.128.72) or from other addresses. Many of the addresses within that netblock have poor SenderBase reputations. They may be on the SCbl (from time to time) and/or other blocklists.

There is no link between whether or not completeweb.net accepts courtesy notifications and the SCbl listing process - once there are sufficient reports within a 24 hour period (or a spamtrap hit) they will be listed.

The only lists they are on (as a domain) at the moment are the rfc-ignorant ones but I'm not sure why (both postmaster and abuse addresses appear to be functioning). I guess evidence of them blocking/rejecting messages to those addresses might earn them a listing there. But half the internet is listed at rfc-ignorant.

My question is still more general in nature. That's what I would like to get answered as posted in previous message from me.

Since you asked, in this specific instance, email is really coming from the advantage multi marketing subnet. they have a policy listed here:

http://www.advantagemm.com/privacy.html

Essentially, they say they get email addresses from third parties, and, they don't send unsolicited messages. Yet, their source of the data may be public databases, they purchase in some cases lists from third parties, and, they seeks "assurances" that the third party has the right to send them this info. Yeah, sure. Yet, they clearly are making it difficult to get off of their lists and are taking little responsibility for them. It's not trivial for an average user to figure out how to find out who they are in the first place since they don't make this obvious. They also claim to not have to follow formatting for UCE since I have supposedly opted in, which I have not. It's all a sham of course.

Sometimes it's wothwhile going upstream of the guilty ISP.

Hi, Steve!...Actually, you asked more than just a general question as to what an ISP can or can not do (emphasis mine): "What can I do to stop receiving this junk from their network?" To answer that, we need to know more about *you* and about *their* network. That also requires some time and research on our part, something someone who offers "spam Control Consulting" should be able and willing to do her/him self (I'm assuming here that Wazoo was accurate in ascribing that notice to you and/ or your "group," whomever that is)....If I understand the situation correctly, another possibility is to block but Whitelist (if your e-mail provider has that option).

Ok, to clear up again, you are playing with words here. I am telling you what I am asking, and what I am not asking. I am not asking what you say I am asking. So, please, don't say it again. Communication is TWO way, that a sentence was not written in a manner someone else can understand does not mean it was done in haste or anything else like that. It simply means you don't get what I am asking. Which could well be my "fault", but, please allow me to amend it instead of continually going back to the first post.

Let me reword - IN GENERAL, if an ISP refuses to do anything about spam from their network, what options does one have other than whitelists, blacklists, RBLs, various things in email server or network level. OTHER options. We do not get these emails in our inbox, it is already controlled, so, please stop saying we should be able to, we do!

I want to go the next step. I have a company I believe is doing the wrong thing (sending UCE, which they of course claim is not UCE), and, I want to know what options I might have to stop them from doing so. Does that make my question more clear?

I already have one constructive answer from dra007. The thing I personally do not know is what is permitted on the internet. i.e., if an ISP just simply doesn't care, is there much anyone can do about it. Do about it means to force them to stop, get them in trouble as suggested at their provider, etc. Not email or network level options, company level options.

I hope that is more clear.

...Let me make clear to others that I do not accept this characterization but am declining to argue further here because I do not feel it would be productive. We can take it to a separate "thread" in the SpamCop Lounge if anyone wishes....Seems to me that you have pretty much eliminated in your "other than" list anything other than what dra007 has suggested. There may be other options but I, a mere e-mail user, don't know of any.

Ok, so, unless others have ideas, it sounds like an ISP is currently allowed to do anything they want on the net (with the possible exception that the next higher up entity cares), there is no law, regulation, anything to prevent it. Thanks for the reply. That answers my question.

The corollary is that you can also do what you want - including not accepting any email from that ISP. Then you don't care what they do since you don't have anything to do with them.

Miss Betsy

That is a different set of reporting addresses: http://www.spamcop.net/sc?track=advantagemm.com

Reporting addresses:
abuse[at]fusionnetworks.com
support[at]fusionnetworks.com
abuse[at]support.eli.net
hostmaster[at]fusionnetworks.com
postmaster[at]fusionnetworks.com

Why are you talking about completeweb.net and (by inference) their refusal of reports? If advantagemm.com are sending you mail, it should be through their mx which is in Swishmail netspace. Or they might be contracting through a specialist mail service since their mx is actually 'immaculate' and that does not fit at all with your description of their list management practices. If you have analysed any of this spam through SC at all, you should provide tracking URLs now. There is altogether too much supposition and guesswork until you do. You are learning nothing and, while we can certainly help you do that , most here would probably not choose to do so.

Advantage is a customer of completeweb and their spam comes from that network. It is the completeweb network. For the nth time, this is an example, and, do not want to go into those details. I got the answers I needed which were not at that level of detail, but at a higher theoretical policy level, perhaps I should have never mentioned a specific example (my mistake!). But then you get chewed out for not having a specific example. So, you do, then you get chewed out for not providing enough details. If you did that, then, people tend to answer questions you are not asking, so, you can't win that way either. I was just trying to keep it simple, and apparently failed.

I love it when people try and tell others what they are or are not learning or doing, and, what they are saying or not saying, what a complete and total waste of effort and time. Must be psychic I guess. But you are wrong of course, I did learn something. And, I put it to use, see below.

If you don't want to answer, then please do not. It is a waste of time to just provide abuse or non useful info for you, and me.

Update: I was able to find an interested party at completeweb, and, perhaps this will be solved shortly. A little "negotiation" and education for them may have been all that was needed. We'll see. I appreciate the useful responses in this thread.

Sorry, but, I tend to not accept that spam is inevitable and continually want to find ways to stop companies from doing so. It's not good enough to simply route spam to a folder, or, block it, or.... Of course, sometimes, that may be necessary, but, I'd rather take the time to solve the problem when there is any way to do so. That benefits not only me, but, lots of other people as well. So, always looking for more ideas to stop companies from spamming.

Ok, if you want one example just to show the why, here:

http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z3109907761z0...bc98bb5fe77f60z

As you can see, it's completeweb as I stated. No reference to Advantage MM, but that is who sent it on behalf of the referenced company. But again, this is not the point. The point was to ask what COULD be done to stop companies from sending spam other than handling it at the receivers end.

This is just one of the many "customers" of Advantage MM, lots of acai berry ads come from them, and all sorts of other ones.

Thanks for the example. Yes, the reference to Advantage MM was purely yours.

The secondary tactic of blocklists is simply is simply to deny delivery on such a scale that the originator is forced to desist. That doesn't work half as well as using the list to filter at the receiving end. But that doesn't work at all if the originator is not doing anything wrong or if he 'snowshoes' well enough (and avoids spamtraps) to stay below the threshold for listing. Note (from the example) that SC is currently offering to report to completeweb.net. The reporting addresses are not entirely unchanging and sometimes it is indeed possible for the sender and the reporter to have a dialog (which the SC reporting system supports).

Another approach, again suiting control at the receiving end, is to use reputation scoring, which I mentioned previously. Indeed the originating IP address for that example (or actually the mx for the originator) has a "Poor" reputation score on SenderBase even if it is not currently listed on the SCbl. Again, by virtue of the scoring system controlling the receiving end, some originators will prefer NOT to have a poor reputation for their servers and may be compelled that way.

But the best control for UCE/UBE through completeweb.net would seem to me, since they are apparently a professional e-marketer, to be to use the 'unsubscribe' link on their emails. Sure it is generally not recommended to unsubscribe from that to which you didn't subscribe but in this case they are using their own network (for sending and for hosting), are accountable for compliance under US law IIRC and (presumably) concerned if loss of reputation harms business. There is nothing for you to lose (unless they waste energy by being vindictive, which is an uncommon response these days) and everything to gain, the way I see it.

Yes, it is good if you can find someone who will listen and will adopt best practices. However, there are fewer and fewer legitimate businesses who are not aware of best practices. Those few who are not aware quickly find out when their sending IP address is blocked or their reputation interferes with their business.

'Real' customers need to understand that they need to select reliable email services that do not get blocked. That's part of the solution. You need to educate your customers to tell their correspondents to get reliable email service. The alternative is to tag email from that source and require your customers to whitelist those 'good' sources.

As you say, the only way to stop spam is at the sending end. If you are willing to find the person who has the authority to change things and negotiate with them, more power to you. However, many deluded senders of unsolicited email won't listen until their other customers complain about having their email blocked.

Your original question was how to stop a sender from sending spam. Blocking the source stops the spam whether or not the sender is willing to listen to best practices. If they don't want to be blocked because they have other customers who are not sending spam, they will find out how to send email without getting blocked. If you want to attempt to convince them that best practices are necessary, that's your prerogative.

There is no 'force' on the internet. Every receiver has the choice to receive email or not. Every sender has the choice to play by the receiver's rules or not. If enough receivers refuse their email, then they are effectively silenced. The simplicity of this is watered down by the fact that server admins want to continue to receive email from 'bad' sources because there may 'good' sources at that IP address. Thus they create content filters and whitelists and the spammers find ways to sneak the bad in with the good.

Miss Betsy

First paragragh of the stating Post cotains inaccuracies, bad scenario descriptions (which also do not match youe very own adbertising blurb about "youe" spam experience, and a definite lack of actual and specific data detsils. (For example, the SpamCop.net Parsing & Reportinf System deals with IP Addresses, not Domains.)

This first Post and your follow-on posts quoted here contain at least eight specific questions, but also include several 'general' situations and circumstances that you seem to be asking for specific educational responses and details .. but again, leaving detals in the wind.

Not sure exactly how you might consider "users of the SpamCop.net tool-set as being someone one in authourity on the matter of "what's legal on the Internet?" as a for instance of your "specific" questions.

As stated previously, I don't wish to see "volunteer" time spent doing the research for someone that then charges for passing on/using that same data for his/her client list.

Some for instance specifics;

Can you go upstream? Of course, but .... In this case of the (few, many? still can't tell) spam e-mails, it probably wouldn't do any good. This ISP/Host (and possibly the data-center involved) is pretty much buying bandwidth from Level3, which is a major hackbone/bandwidth provider. Your spam isn't much more than a tiny blip on the bandwidth being consumed and paid for. On the other hand, proof/evidence of your allaged handling/blocking of spam-sourcing complaints might be an issue that Level3 could show some interest in and having some dialog with your specific ISP/Host in question.

Yet, on yet another hand, nothing is known from this side of the screen about your direct e-mail complaints. Might they have included all your own adveretsing links/URLs, etc.??? Your allaged blocking action might have been based on something entirely different than just the act of complaining about your incoming spam.

SpamCop does not add this ((host)) to its list. Again, the Parsing & Reporting system doesn't deal with Domains. What is on the SpamCopDNSBL is a FAQ/Wiki item, defined in several places. Again, your lack ofd specific data in your quesries does not allow for any reseach to be performed by anoyone here to see the 'history' of any particular IP Address involved, be it connected to an actual ISP/Host e-mail server or a compromised und-users' home netwrk/system. A major difference in the grand scheme of things.

Can you add to other BLs? There are literally thousands upon thousands of BLs out in the world, all using their own rules, criterion, suggested uses, etc. Again, why should allow the volunteers here to spend their time doing your research? And yet again, is the problem dealing with the ISP/Host's e-mal servers or their customer based exploited home systems?

Anyway, just a few of the things that I started trying to dig up but halted when I noted that you advertised yourself as an "expert" in the field, charging for your services to "control other folks' spam issues."

BTW: starter replaced in a 94 Chrysler, two lawn-mowers back in service, brake-job started on a 97 Chrysler, owner sent on a mission to purchase needed parts, (loss of daylght halted this job) .... and payment received was a meal of some microwaved frozen-chicken nuggets, some boiled fresh corn, and three lolli-pops shared with some neighborhood kids. Yep, just another high-priced consultant here <g>

That is probably your main bone of contention. Thanks for your thoughts on going upstream, etc.

It's ISP email.

Which is true, we don't get spam in users inboxes, and, we don't have good email rejected or in spam boxes in our work environment. But this has little to do with that, and is not the same question, we already do that (control) well. This whole exercise is for my personal home email, not for any sort of client. I understand how you might not like that part. I help people all the time in other forums where I am the expert and know what you mean here. I am not an expert on ISPs or what effective reporting can or can not be done. Still, some forums are experts helping experts even. Nothing wrong with that. One never has to post, so, up to you. Could I use any knowledge gained here for future client benefits? I suppose, but, one can use anything they learn anywhere, including simply reading posts (so that would mean you'd have to not post), for that purpose. Still, that is not the point here. This is all for personal email address as was the sample SPAMCOP report I posted.

This high priced consultant can't do that stuff any more. My high priced work all goes to health care now since I am self employed and have a very very bad back.

Exactly.

Sorry, I should not have asked about real customers missing good emails when you block a mailserver. Very bad mis-statement. I was trying to convey the meaning that I did not want to block a mailserver, I wanted to stop the spam at the source in this case and get ideas on how to do so. BAD example. I guess I am annoyed at this company and it's more personal now when they blocked my emails to them after reporting the last time. I have done an extraordinarily bad job of explaining myself here. I guess I am quite bad at explaining myself, which is good that I don't have to very often!

Yes that can be true. In this case, they have nicely split out the marketing division into their own subnet, so, blocking the subnet would in fact not eliminate any good email. Still, the idea here to is stop them from sending it in the first place.

They are not getting reports because I turned them off because of listwashing.

Ellen

They may have listwashed a time or two, but, they continue to obtain email addresses like mine that were previously washed.

Anyway, I would not worry about it for now as completeweb is not happy at all with what they are doing. They should get their chance to fix it. Perhaps completeweb will make them comply with their policies. Which require opt in, not list buying and such things.

Is that really a good reason anyway?

http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=150

To some people, it is a good reason not to be 'listwashed' -there are numerous exchanges (mostly in the past) about munging vs not munging where munging prevents listwashing and non-munging asserting that even if you are listwashed, it is likely that your address will added to another list as 'live' - spammers have no honor among themselves - selling listwashed lists as 'live addresses').

And, yes, if you want to take the time to 'educate' upstreams about what their subs are doing, that's a good thing. Sometimes it works.

When you use spamcop, it is a tool. I am not enough interested to research all the posts, etc., but if Ellen says that completeweb was not getting reports because of listwashing, then I expect that reports were going to devnull which does not mean that they were not added to the algorithym that includes an IP address on the scbl and which probably means that that those IP addresses were on the scbl.

The point is that you can use spamcop to 'report' to those who do want to be on blocklists. You can also use it to find out the proper abuse addresses if you want to report manually. But, since most legitimate email list managers are aware of 'best practices,' the major portion of reports are used to add to the scbl and to block or tag incoming email.

spamcop doesn't bother to report to those server admins who do 'nothing' since it is pointless and, in some people's eyes, a form of spam itself. If you want to carry it one step further, then you are free to use spamcop as a tool. If you don't like the parser results, then you are on your own to find other tools to do your 'persuasion'

Only it seems to me that you are now looking for revenge for blocking your emails. Revenge is not mannerly and the internet is based on etiquette. Manners require that rather than retaliating, that you simply ignore the unmannerly - which you can do easily by blocking them if you control the server - which apparently you do. As an individual, you may not be able to block them since too many ISPs don't want to upset customers by rejecting possible 'good' email so maybe the best you can do is JHD (Just Hit Delete) or filter them to a folder where the whole folder is deleted.

What is it that you want? No, there is no way to make shady people and criminals to stop spamming. Yes, you can attempt to persuade people that it is not a good idea to allow spamming (in the early days, when there was more chance of persuasion, one person who held your views claimed to have convinced a porn website manager that spam was not a good idea). And, yes, once in a while you will be successful. Is it worth your time? Not in the opinion of those who employ blocklists and never see the spam. IMHO, it is like the starfish story and if you want to spend your time, it is worth it.

Miss Betsy

In all of this we seem to be talking about a 'last generation' or 'straight-up' spammer - advantagemm.com according to the OP, using the services of completeweb.net for distribution and associated website hosting. Not an evident criminal.

Ellen says completeweb.net are not (currently) getting reports because they listwash - these are, or sometimes are, client's lists so completeweb.net has apparently been passing reports to their client(s) - though whether or not they have ever done so in the case of advantagemm.com is moot since the OP says the stuff keeps coming. Maybe they are a client that doesn't listwash or maybe they keep refreshing the OP's address from a third party source. There again none of his reports may have gone anywhere but to devnull and/or he may be using the munging option. I am currently seeing the offer to report to 'garya' (Gary Anagnostis) rather than to any devnull 'address' but the address is noted "(Administrator of IP block - statistics only)" which might mean he doesn't get reports, just a summary, so the same as devnull from the point of view of the individual reporter.

In any event, it seems completeweb.net would be happy to have the OP off the advantagemm.com list(s) and his update of the encouraging signs he is getting from them would be a sign of that much, at least. Unlike the criminal, botnet-using greater majority/'new mainstream' of spammers these days, completeweb.net are upfront and accountable for their CAN-spam compliance. Now, will all of that translate into completeweb.net ceasing to send advantagemm.com spam to the OP and the other unfortunates on 'the list'? I doubt it - completeweb.net will be reluctant to dump a client and advantagemm.com can promise to improve their list management but there is no way completeweb.net will be in a position to monitor that - especially if they don't get SC reports. Why should anything actually change? Even if the OP is successful in 'educating' completeweb.net that doesn't translate into educating advantagemm.com (who might prefer finding another service provider to actual compliance even if they are put under the pump by their present one - back to square one).

I come back to my previous recommendation. Since this is a straight-up spammer (now rare, but incredibly persistent), use the unsubscibe links. That way, even if advantagemm.com 'refresh' the OP's address from external sources and the spam continues, such behaviour is essentually indistinguishable from failure to comply with the 'effective unsubscribe' provisions of the CAN-spam Act and places them on very shaky grounds indeed - and, vicariously, completeweb.net too. American taxpayers have paid enough for that (usually) dysfunctional piece of legislation, why not use it when the opportunity presents? I suggest it would be very difficult to demonstrate non-compliance other than through failure to effectively honour unsubscribe requests. Yes, it will (probably) take time. And no, it won't work with the 'new mainstream' spammers. Just my opinion.

Nothing, short of notifying their upstream provider. Some ISPs are black and others, like e-marketing firms don't care, because they assume all their customers legally obtained the email addresses. You can CC complaints/reports to their upstream, like GBLX or Telia, but many times, they don't respond to the average pissed off spam recipient.