Earthlink email delivery

[mark]

First off -- we've constantly had problems with Earthlink blocking us since we launched over a year ago. I've had to request us be unblocked on average once a month and it's kind of frustrating -- they're the only provider that is doing this!

So, I'm sorry to anybody who's using Earthlink to receive email. We do our best to get unblocked as soon as we hear about it, but sometimes we don't find out about it until after you do -- and I know that's frustrating. Getting notifications in a timely fashion is really important on a site like Dreamwidth.

We're trying to work on a better long term resolution (getting on some sort of whitelist?) but it's going to take some time.

But! Maybe you can help:

Does anybody reading this have contacts within Earthlink's systems administration/mail group? If we could talk to someone directly, we could probably get this resolved permanently in a few hours. It's finding someone to talk to that's the hard part!

Thanks in advance!

Comments

[hellkitty]

Wish I knew someone to help, but I use earthlink and I just want to thank you for staying on top of this! What a pain!

[alierak]

I'll try subscribing to Spam-L to check their archives and see if that would be a good place to ask.

[alierak]

Inconclusive. They might accept a deliverability question. Example threads also include, paraphrased from February archives, "Hey, is peer 1 a spammer network? Yes and no. Here's a list of all their IP space if you want to block them, but you'll probably break something if you do." I'm guessing we had Earthlink deliverability issues even back with Slicehost, so you'd want to ask the question from the Earthlink perspective instead, like you're doing.

[mark]

I think the main problem is the email forwarding we provide for people, which ends up forwarding spam in some cases and that triggers Earthlink to block us as they think we're either spammers or an open relay.

I've been pondering maybe doing all of our mail forwarding from one set of IPs and having the mail that comes "from Dreamwidth" happen from an entirely different set. That way at least our mail will still get through.

This assumes forwarding is the problem, too, and it may not be. It could be when someone comments with spam, and we email out that comment (containing spam) ...

Email is so annoying, heh.

[jalendavi_lady]

Also the received vs read mail ratio.

I've noticed Yahoo Mail starts labeling some website email alert lists I'm signed up for start diverting to Spam unless I look at some of them every once in a while.

If people are asking for email alerts and then not opening the emails because they've read the news post or seen the comment to their entry or are using the E-mail My Comments option as a way to archive things they've said online, it can mess with that ratio, fast.

[pauamma]

*recovers from flashback to LJ support, late 2006* Hmm, IIRC, 6A/LJ ops tried that (the split SMTP thing), and it only worked for a while.

[alierak]

Yeah. Maybe also send official communications from an email address in a subdomain.

[umbo]

I am in chat with an earthlink tech support person, and he's asking what the exact bounceback message is that y'all are getting.

[mark]

550 Dynamic/zombied/spam IPs blocked. Write blockedbyearthlink@abuse.earthlink.net

Our IPs are not dynamic, zombies, or spam. Every time we've written in, they've unblocked us pretty quickly, which seems to indicate that they agree we aren't any of the above.

We're also not on any of the blacklists, if it matters, and I don't think we've ever ended up on them.

[umbo]

Okay, the chat guy says:

Please ask the sender to send to send the complete bounce back message to the blockedbyearthlink@abuse.earthlink.net.

Eddie S: http://support.earthlink.net/articles/email/email-blocked-by-earthlink.php

Eddie S: Open the link and go through the information


(don't know if that helps or not--I did ask them for a contact in administration)

ETA: They won't give me any further contact info--I asked!

[denise]

Yeah, we do that every time we get blocked ... and it lasts a month until we get blocked again. We're hoping we can figure out some long term solution.

[green_knight]

< puts on customer service hat>


First step would be to write to blockedbyearthlink@abuse.earthlink.net and ask to speak to a manager so you can be added to a whitelist. (AFAIK, many, if not most, companies have a policy of bringing things to the attention of people further up the chain when you're a) asking outright and b) persistent enough.

If that doesn't help, write to another part of Earthlink, for instance

EarthLink Investor Relations
investorrelations@corp.earthlink.net

and ask them to forward the message. Introduce yourself as Dreamwidth, what your service is, and that you have continous problems and haven't been able to speak to someone with the authority to whitelist Dreamwidth. Your message might bounce around the company for a bit, but it has, IME, a good chance to being delivered to the right person eventually.

This is a common problem, and DW is suffering from the same problem. If I came to the DW website as an outsider, wanting to reach a manager on a business-to-business level, I couldn't. There's no 'about us/contact us' on the website, only going through dw_suggestions and a FAQ search with the option to open a support request; which will end in a queue and be handled by a volunteer....

There are good reasons for this, but it doesn't make it easier for people at the other end to deal with you.

[trixtah]

Um, the convention, if you are suffering from issues sending mail, is to email postmaster@[domain], which should be a monitored address, per the terms of RFC 2821. Or abuse@[domain] for spam.

I certainly don't muck about trying to negotiate "customer support", because I am not a customer. I represent an organisation that is trying to send mail to a customer of theirs, and it's not the same thing at all. You'd be surprised at the number of organisations that have no provision for raising trouble-tickets for external parties, assuming they actually care. So it's best to just cut to the chase, or get an ACTUAL customer to raise it as a support issue with the approved channels.

[green_knight]

Trying postmaster is a good idea, but I see the main problem differntly from you: as far as I make out, what I am trying to do in situations like this is to get _past_ the customer support person (who might be working from a script, and might be working without any authorisation at all) and to get the situation escalated to the managerial level where someone *can* take an action.

If the information isn't publicly available, 'who do we need to contact to resolve this' is a legitimate question. (And yes, I've dealt with this on both sides of the equation.)

[trixtah]

Yes, but my point really boils down to the fact that "postmaster" is publicly available information, when it comes down to sending email.

I do actually agree with your broader point - every organisation should have a "Contact Us" or "Info" address - but there is a standard route for email (and web sites - "webmaster").

[siderea]

If I came to the DW website as an outsider, wanting to reach a manager on a business-to-business level, I couldn't. There's no 'about us/contact us' on the website, only going through dw_suggestions and a FAQ search with the option to open a support request; which will end in a queue and be handled by a volunteer...

So. Much. This.

[umbo]

I did specifically ask several times for someone in administration that DW could contact if this happened again, but I got nowhere with it, even when I threatened going to another internet provider if it continued to be a problem--sorry.

[pauamma]

Did you check whether any of your addresses was in the Spamhaus PBL or Zen list?

[mark]

I didn't check this time, but I have checked periodically and we've not been listed in any of the major lists.

[trixtah]

I think I've suggested on a previous occasion that you get an SPF and/or a DKIM record published for your domain. It may well help with Earthlink, and it definitely helps with the Big Three webmail providers.

SPF in particular is a no-brainer, and it certainly won't hurt.

In fact, I've found an old-ish article that asserts that SPF is a must-have for bulk emails: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum31/2176.htm. It's definitely true for AOL as well.

[garryowen]

If it's any consolation, it's not just you. I've had to call Earthlink repeatedly to have them whitelist my FRIENDS, who are on my contacts list, and who suddenly--for no reason--can't send me emails. Earthlink must just have crappy spam filtering, IDK.

[triadruid]

Yeah, a friend finally gave up on them after they implemented one of those "your friends must click this link to send you email" whitelisting nightmares.

[randwolf]

Could you perhaps send their head office a certified, return-receipt-requested letter on paper? There would be no doubt it was received, then.

Earthlink, 1375 Peachtree St., Atlanta, Georgia, 30309-3173
(404) 815-0770, fax (404)815-8805

List of officers.

[sylumgator]

Is it all earthlink, or just some? I use Hughes Net and recall they acquired Earthlink highspeed sometime back. There is a reason my email if not Hughes Net, they are trippy about blocking stuff.
I also want to say (I have a horrid memory) that Walter of squidge.org had this problem with his email lists for awhile. Not sure how he resolved it, but dropping him an email might be worthwhile?