pageoneresults - 2:47 pm on Sep 15, 2004 (gmt 0)

It's funny that this topic has come up. I was just speaking with my Server Admin yesterday about catch-all accounts and what steps we should take.

My recommendation is that they be eliminated altogether. Years ago before the UCE was out of hand, a catch-all account was an added feature of email. Today, it is a detriment.

Over the next two weeks, we are removing all catch-all accounts and will be disabling the feature in our email program. If there is one thing that is feeding the UCE, it is the catch-all accounts. I'd say at least 30-50% of the UCE received is to a catch-all account.

Users are viewing their catch-all accounts with a Preview Pane open. So, when they click the email subject link to review the body in the Preview Pane, I do believe they are phoning home and sending a message to the sender that the mail was read. This keeps that catch-all account name in the UCE list as it is a valid account (no bounce).

Our new plan is to tell clients to give us all email addresses that they think should be set up as forwards due to misspellings. We then set those up as aliases with a forward and then forget about them.