Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
Now, a few months later I am wanting to send my customers a new newsletter...I decided to e-mail my hosting company to make sure they wouldn't shut down my e-mail and here is the response I got:
"It is not allow to send out bulk emails.
http://myhosting.com/FAQs/hosting_ans.htm#42
You allow to use mailing list to share same interest to group of people.
However, if we receive spam complain that will be another issue,
Which mean someone is not welcome your email."
This scares me for a couple reasons.
A) There is not a single sentence that makes sence in English.
B) At the provided link, it does not say what I am doing is wrong since I do not use the hosting companies servers to send the e-mails.
After the quote I posted above, he added a quote from SpamCop that tells about how opt-in lists have to be unchecked, then send a random verification code to be acceptable. I did not do the verification codes, but it did say I could e-mail current subscribers to send them a verification code and update the list. Then again, that would be sending bulk e-mail in itself.
What should I do? I am scared that if I do anything I will get all e-mail to the domain names shut down just because I don't understand his response.
The bottom line is this... no matter how diligent you are in adhering to "best practices" with opt-in email, if your list is large enough, you will get the occasional spam report.
The best insurance is to make sure that you have a file of all subscribe requests available, and back this file up religiously.
If email marketing is going to be a significant part of your business strategy (and it should) I'd also suggest making sure that you work with a host that is well versed in legitimate opt-in practices. There are far too many that will just pull the plug without a fair hearing.
At a minimum, you HAVE TO send an ezine out monthly... although I recommend twice a month. People just forget that they've subscribed and sometimes report you. And some hosting companies, ISP's DSL's don't care of they've opted in... or even what proof they have. They'll just send you a horrid note and then shut you down (even if it's your first complaint in 7 years!) You're guilty until proven differently.
Even if you use a free email account to send the ezine out, if it mentions ANY other site, and someone considers it spam, they can also close down the other person's website, too.
Question, the addresses you have, can you send them a snailmail newsletter? Or a postcard or letter offering them a subscription to your ezine with a free report (or something)? Or just start all over again with an opt in program and make sure you send something interstesting out every two weeks.
The trick is getting them to limit how severe their response is by making it *very* clear why they are recieving the newsletter then you can change i.e.
you recieved this newsletter because when you registered on <link>www.example.com</link> you told us to send you this monthly newsletter, if you no longer wish to recieve this newsletter then please <blah>...
That limits the amount of people who would consider it out-and-out spam (either because it jogs their memory or they think that they might have subscribed) which in my experience would push someone whom might report it as spam into someone whom either follows the removal instructions or someone who mails you asking to be removed.
However at the end of the day you still have no guarantees that you wont get the odd spam report. With your current host this is a bad thing.
My advice would be look at other hosting companies and make a point of getting their policy on newsletter-type mail-outs in writing - most frown on bulk-mailing totally since they provide email as a courtesy service on top of site hosting and so people using their email systems heavily tends to result in terrible service for all the other customers.
if it mentions ANY other site, and someone considers it spam, they can also close down the other person's website, too
I feel coachmaria has either had a really bad experience or has over-simplified. A few complaints should rarely ever result in any action from a normal hosting company (otherwise what stops me getting my competitors site shutdown?) but if your actions start generating lots of complaints or the complaints refer to something which genuinely violates their TOS then I would expect them to take action.
- Tony
It is possible that Spamcop will find 'host referenced in spam' and notify your host ISP, if you put the URL in the email. But ISPs are a hell of a lot easier to deal with if they know the emails are not coming out of their servers.
From what I read here at ww
Don't make the mistake of assuming the audience here bears any relation to the general population in terms of how they use the internet, including e-mail.
OTOH, ISPs are more likely to react similarly to the audience here at WebmasterWorld.
I distribute regional tourism requests that are gathered from a form which can only be described as having "totally-paranoid-massive-disclosure-that-spells-out-everything-four-times," yet I still get turned in to spamcop. I keep a set of canned replies to their warning which I send them every time someone pulls the tripwire, which shows their policeman-du-jour the form and all of the disclosure that is involved, as well as our own very prominently displayed complaint filing system. So far, they've backed off after reviewing that.
I agree that the day of the free email newsletter distributed by small, independent webmasters (as opposed to those that are big enough to have a direct understanding with their ISP) is coming to an end.
The problem with using a dial-up to send direct is that you will find you have more and more failures as ISPs start to deny mail from anything that isn't a mail-server (ie senders IP isn't listed as an MX record for the sending address), which IMO is a sensible measure.
AOL implement front-line filters similar to this...
550 - AOL no longer accepts connections from dynamically assigned IP addresses to our relay servers. Please contact your ISP to have your mail redirected through your ISP's SMTP servers.This indicates that you are trying to connect directly to AOL's relay servers to send mail from an IP address which is listed in AOL's dial-up-list.
AOL will not accept port 25 connections from dynamically assigned IP addresses; we require that all email connections come from static IP addresses (a "fixed" line – like an SMTP server). If you get this message, you should talk to your ISP to have your email re-routed through your ISP's SMTP servers.
If your IP address has been mistakenly added to the dial-up-list, you will need to have your ISP or Upstream provider contact AOL to remove the IP addresses out of the dial-up-list.
Just some food for thought...
- Tony
I agree with you it is a sensible measure.
The software I use has an embedded SMTP relay so it is not a problem at the moment. I always check the relay first by sending one email to myself at my Spamcop email address which has all the filters enabled - so far never had a problem.
Thanks for the heads up on AOL.
