help with reports

[Nayla]

hi

I would like a suggestion towards a SOLUTION of the following problem

someone decided to send spam and included a list of webpages as part of his spam letter, that person decided to include the URL to my domain

this was obviously done WITHOUT my permission

powweb is telling me to stop the spam, I can't

I don't know how to spam and I don't know how to stop it

the only thing I could do was to cancel all web mail using my domain

after reading the copy of the spam letter sent to you by a complainant, I noticed that there was an email there and also the invitation to join a yahoo group

on January 28, I joined that yahoo group so I could send the group owner a message similar to the one sent at the email address mentioned in the spam. I asked the person to remove the URL of my webapge from his list of spam-mail and I told him about the trouble that he caused me

that person never answered my email, but he received it as it did not bounce, he approves all messages to his yahoo group and since he posted messages received after mine, then he obviously had to screen my message concerning the spam he sent

now I still have problem with powweb, they tell me to confirm that I stopped the spam reported by SpamCop

how in the world do I do this???????

I did NOT send the spam, I had NOTHING to do with it, I don't even know who sent it

why am I being penalized for something I had nothing to do with???

too bad the person liked my webpage and decided to recommend it on his spam mail and now he succeeded into getting my page off the net!!!

but .....

what am I supposed to do to get powweb to re-enable my http service???

let's not go into a circle ->

don't tell me to agree to stop spam while I am asking you help to solve this problem

( I don't like spam any more than the person who complained to you about me doing spam)

telling me to stop doing what I don't even have the computer skills to do is NOT A SOLUTION

so ...

let's not go into a circle of you telling me <stop the spam> and me saying < how>

or then you saying <simply stop> and me saying < help me>

or then you say <confirm you stopped> and me saying < where is the help>

I am already doing this circle dance with powweb for about one week now

please tell me how I can solve this problem and finally get my webpage back online

you know, it is entirely possible that not everybody listed in a spam letter is guilty of being affiliated with spamming, I know, I did nothing and I am blacklisted

hoping you are the one who will finally offer me a useful suggestion to solve this problem

thank you for your time

[Merlyn]

It is hard to assist with only a nice story. What is the site being accused of spamvertising? Do you have a copy of the email?

[StevenUnderwood]

All of this is based on my reading of your message, and assuming that it is all true (not saying it is not, we do have spammers come in here trying to discredit spamcop). I am making generalizations here as you do not even mention that it was a spamcop report that the web host is acting on.

You need to convince powweb that this was none of your doing and that you are an innocent by stander.

Powweb should have a copy of the spamcop report, which will include the original spam. They should be able to view the spam and determine whether they believe your story. The spamcop report is simply informational, stating to the web host that an address was included in a spam and is labeled as a possible

"spamvertised" site. Spamcop does not block based on spamvertised sites. It is up to the web host to determine whether this was intentional or the site is being "Joe-jobbed" (shown to try and make the spam seem legitamate) and what action needs to be taken.

Hope this helps

[Nayla]

yes, believe it or not, my story is true

powweb of course did not believe me since my site was advertized in that letter

I did not mention my URl because I have just spent enough time trying to prove to my hosting company that I advertize it only though legal channels, and therefore I am not going to use this forum as an opportunity to advertize my site

the reporting was done by SpamCop

this is how I learned bout the existence of SpamCop and this is why I wrote here about the problem

powweb sent me a copy of the letter advertizing my site in a warning letter and then disabled the http service within 24 hours, even before I had time to check my mail and read about the warning

powweb finally decided it was time to believe my story and my site is online again after being off 5 days following one single report from SpamCop

why did not SpamCop contact me first?

I still would have done as I did the past few days, which was to write to the email address on that spam letter and join that yahoo group to try to contact the person(s) responsible for sending that spam mail advertizing my site and to ask the person(s) to remove my URL from that spam letter ( assuming they wished to continue sending such spam, I personally do not choose spam as a method to advertize my site and would have refused to have my site mentioned if my permission would have been sought)

if I would have been contacted first , then my site would not have been online for that long following one single report and also I would not have gone into so many " circles' with powweb trying to tell them that I cannot prove that I had nothing to do with a spam I knew nothing about

[Merlyn]

Like I said, too much generalization here. Why would Spamcop contact you? The administrative person registered in Arin or Ripe etc. as the owner of the IP address for the site would have been the one to get the report.

I do not believe PowWeb would toss you out just because of one or two spam reports if you explained what happened. They have a bit of a spammy past themselves and they know how these things work.

If you want accurate answers you will have to provide some evidence. There is no problem here because all we have is a story. I am not saying it is not true without anything to go on it is just a story.

The only usefull suggestion is to post the evidence in here and let the people here that help do what they are good at.

[turetzsr]

[Nayla] yes, believe it or not, my story is true

...Having no reason not to do so at this point, I will make the assumption that it is true.

[Nayla] powweb of course did not believe me since my site was advertized in that letter

...In my personal (and not necessarily knowledgeable) opinion, powweb is not being a responsible host. Of course, you have no way of controlling other people from including your URL in an e-mail and powweb should not make you have to prove a negative (that is, that you did not give permission to that person or those people to include a reference to your web site URL in their e-mail). Also, in my personal opinion (and, again, assuming your story to be true), were I you I would be looking to sever my relationship with powweb and seek a more reasonable host.

[Nayla]powweb finally decided it was time to believe my story and my site is online again after being off 5 days following one single report from SpamCop

...Wait a minute -- perhaps powweb are more responsible than they appeared to be, at first!

...From what I understand, SpamCop.Net will not add an IP address (and never a domain name or a web URL) on their block list without at least two spam reports. I don't have first-hand knowledge of how web sites within reported spam e-mails are treated by SpamCop.Net, but I've seen claims elsewhere that SpamCop.Net does not blacklist URLs. I would want to see exactly what communication powweb has received from SpamCop.Net before commenting further (well, actually, it wouldn't mean much to me, being a lowly reporting user, but it might to a SpamCop deputy).

[Nayla]why did not SpamCop contact me first?

...SpamCop is somewhat automated, and adds IP addresses reported by (at least two) members to its publicly-accessible block list.

[Merlyn] Like I said, too much generalization here.  Why would Spamcop contact you?  The administrative person registered in Arin or Ripe etc. as the owner of the IP address for the site would have been the one to get the report.

...Indeed, I do not understand that, either, as SpamCop.Net's stated policy is as you describe. But until I know differently, I'm willing to give the OP (original poster) the benefit of the doubt.

[Merlyn] I do not believe PowWeb would toss you out just because of one or two spam reports if you explained what happened. They have a bit of a spammy past themselves and they know how these things work.

...In my humble (and, again, not very knowledgeable) opinion, I don't see that view as necessarily true (or, admittedly, necessarily force).

[Merlyn] If you want accurate answers you will have to provide some evidence.  There is no problem here because all we have is a story.  I am not saying it is not true without anything to go on it is just a story.

...And what would that evidence be (I'm not trying to be snide, here, just trying to help us work our way to making specific, helpful suggestions to the OP)? And to whom should it go -- here (the Help forum) or directly to the deputies?