AOL subscribers and Bodies Like Ours

[Betsy]

Below is a copy of an email sent to our AOL subscribers a short time ago. If you are an AOL subscriber, our decision is not alone. I have spent many hours this week trying to figure out what to do about AOL and their automated spam reporting process which is affecting many mailing lists. Our decision simply mirrors the actions that other list operators have also done. This action was prompted by list subscribers who specifically opted in to receive our newsletter via email who then reported it as spam. This was on top of the time spent dealing with our site host over spam complaints made against Bodies Like Ours by people who asked to get our email. I don't have the time to deal with AOL and the rest of our subscribers shouldn't be denied mail they asked for because of a few clueless AOL subscribers.

Whether your email is from BLO or any other list you may have subscribed to, just unsubscribe if you don't want to receive it any more. When you report it as spam, it really does snowball (no pun intended towards the heavy snow we are getting in NJ right now) and the results can be detrimental to the rest of the community.

January 22, 2005

AOL Email Addresses to be Dropped From Bodies Like Ours Newsletter and Alerts Lists

As an AOL customer, you no doubt are familiar with the ease of reporting spam using the AOL email interface. Unfortunately, it appears that it may be too easy for careless users to do this even with email they explicitly requested and want. The AOL system is completely automated and can result in the banning of entire email servers from their system without any human intervention when users carelessly report wanted email as spam.

As a result of repeated instances of AOL users reporting as spam email they opted in for or requested, all AOL addresses are being dropped from the Bodies Like Ours mailing lists.

Whether intentional or unintentional, when email that is not spam is reported as such, it is time consuming and extremely frustrating to deal with for a small organization like Bodies Like Ours. In the three years we have used email to communicate with our supporters, the only spam complaints we have received are from AOL users, despite the fact there are several hundred people receiving our newsletters and alerts. The recent AOL complaints have all been generated since AOL moved to an automated system in recent months.

We would like to keep you as subscribers to our infrequent email newsletters and alerts. If you would like to continue receiving email from Bodies Like Ours, you will need to re-subscribe and follow the directions for opting in using an email address from an email provider other than AOL. You can do this by visiting our subscription management area online at
http://www.bodieslikeours.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=158

Please note that if you sign up to continue getting email from us, you do NOT need to remove your AOL address. It will be removed automatically.

If you don't have another email address to use, we recommend exploring free options such as Yahoo, Hotmail, or GMail from Google. I personally use GMail and am pleased with their spam filtering and ease of use.

If you no longer wish to receive email from Bodies Like Ours, do nothing.
Your address will automatically be removed.

If you still wish to keep up with what's happening at Bodies Like Ours and in the intersex movement, you can visit our website; all newsletters are posted there as soon as they are published.

AOL addresses are no longer permitted to subscribe to our newsletters. If AOL changes their spam reporting methods and policies, this exclusion may be rescinded.

We recognize this may seem very unfair to our supporters with AOL email addresses and we agree with you 100%. However you will need to address your concerns with AOL and not Bodies Like Ours. We are not equipped to solve AOL problems on behalf of our supporters. We recommend you visit http://postmaster.aol.com/ for more information on how the spam reporting policy at AOL works. You--as a subscriber and customer of AOL--should have the ability to receive email from those you wish to communicate with. AOL thinks otherwise and has made this impossible.

Spam is a serious problem and blight. Here at Bodies Like Ours, we get several hundred pieces of spam a day and it is a constant battle to keep up with it. Banning all email into our incoming servers however is not seen as an option; that is precisely what is occurring with AOL currently. We are sorry and disappointed we need to take this drastic step in regards to AOL addresses, however AOL has given us no other choice.

Please contact Bodies Like Ours at info@<hidden> if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Betsy Driver
Bodies Like Ours

[Betsy]

Addendum to the above post

I just snagged this off a geek forum I frequent. It explains the situation better than I did.

Subscriber Notice regarding ezMLM mail lists
Here is another post to our Membership. Please feel free to use as appropriate.

Hello Members,

I have been receiving lots of email from our members regarding the email problem which has resulted in temporary suspension of our email lists. Apparently many of our members do not fully understand this problem.

The problem is *not* with our FutureQuest Host provider. Rather, AOL is the sole cause. AOL has begun blocking a range of IP addresses or entire ISP’s because of AOL users reporting Spam email which appear to come from those sources.

Remember, this is not just about our members, or our Host provider, but all AOL users reporting Spam from any source. AOL has blocked FutureQuest twice recently for a short period. They have blocked many other ISP’s as well, and they are especially targeting email lists.

All of this is done by an *automated* AOL system with no human intervention. Guilty until proven innocent! ISP’s responding to AOL complaints have to prove to AOL that the email was not spam but OPT-in email to get the block removed. If not, those ISP's servers will not be allow to send email to AOL users.

NOTE:
I will try to keep members advised of this situation via the What's New page on our web site.


====================================
What is an Email Confirmed Opt-In Subscription Process?
[by FutureQuest]

Most ISP's including our FutureQuest Terms of Service require that all mailing lists be operated under a Confirmed Opt-In subscription process. Confirmed Opt-In is a process by which email addresses are subscribed to a mailing list only after careful measures have been taken, to ensure that the owner of the email address wishes to be added to the mailing list. Confirmed Opt-In is sometimes also referred to by other names, such as Double-Opt-In and Verified-Opt-In.

The primary benefit of Confirmed Opt-In, is to protect your list and site against "spam" complaints, which can ultimately lead to account termination. As an added benefit of the Confirmed Opt-In process, only valid, functioning email addresses are added to the mailing list, foiling accidental typos by the submitter or listowner. By confirming that the address is valid and functioning, you ensure that your mailings reach your intended audience, and also protect against elevated loads from the mail server dealing with a large numbers of bounce messages.

Before adding a subscriber to our mailing lists it is important to verify that:

The email address has been provided with the consent of the actual owner of the email address.

The owner of the email address has explicitly requested to receive your mailings.

It is possible that a third party may have provided the email address without the permission or knowledge of the email address owner. This can be intentional or completely unintentional. Therefore, the list owner must verify the request in order to prevent persons from being subscribed without their knowledge or permission.

To implement a Confirmed Opt-In process, as required by the FutureQuest Terms of Service, you will need to send a confirmation email to each email address before it is subscribed to the mailing list. AND, the subscriber must repond to the confirmation request.

Please note that our ezMLM mailing list software, which is pre-installed on all FutureQuest® servers, provides a built-in Confirmed Opt-In process when an email is sent from the potential subscriber to the list subscription address, handling all of the requirements above transparently and automatically for the list owner. Additionally, we provide a subscribe/unsubscribe form for your website, which also uses the same automatic Confirmed Opt-In process.

==========================================
(This part is only marginally relevant to the BLO mailing lists as we have an opt-in process for changing addresses that the receiver must do themselves)

In the past, we have accepted requests from members to add or change their email address. This service will no longer be provided to our membership. All members *must* use the forms on the web site to confirm Opt-In email subscription.

I'm waitng to hear from FutureQuest about our confirmation process. I may be required to remove all subscribers and have members subscribe again using the confirmation Opt-in process.


=============================
What can you do to help as a member?

Check your Email Controls (AOL)
Check your Spam Folder to ensure your spam filters have not caught any mail incorrectly.

Go to AOL Keyword: Spam Folder. If you see any email sent by our organization, select it, then click "THIS IS NOT SPAM." AOL will then look for similar mail and make sure to place them in your Inbox.

Go to AOL Keyword: Spam Controls.
Under "Blocked Mail Should Be"
Select 'Delivered to the Spam Folder'
In this way, you will be able to locate e-mail that has been blocked by checking your Spam Folder.

Add our email addresses to your Address Book

To bypass your Mail and Spam Controls and possible blocks from AOL's Spam Filters, add the following email addresses to your AOL Address Book. Mail from senders in your Address Book will be delivered to you regardless of the blocks you've set.

Go to AOL Keyword: Address Book.
Click ADD.
Type the information under the Contact, Home, Work, or Details tabs.

something@<hidden>
webmaster@<hidden>
listname@<hidden>
listname2@<hidden>

When you have finished, click SAVE.
If this works as it should, our email should go to your Inbox, not your Spam junk folder.

Check your AOL email controls for the option to block email which appears to be coming from an email list. Uncheck that option if it is checked.

MOST IMPORTANT - Be careful not to use your email control and accidentally report our email as Spam!

[Betsy]

This was posted by the owner of the company where our site is hosted in their forums about what AOL users are reporting to AOL as spam and what happens with it. The point here is that if you use AOL or communicate with someone on an AOL address and if AOL decides it is spam, or the recipient accidently reports it as spam to AOL, you can consider the contents of your email as public because it end up in the hands of people who should not be privy to your private communication.

Bodies Like Ours is seriously considering cutting off all incoming communication from AOL addresses because it is clear that that the actions of AOL violates our privacy policy. Say someone writes an email from an AOL address that contains information of a very private nature. I respond back and AOL somehow using a formula only they know decides it is spam, or the person accidently hits "this is spam" instead of "delete this" (the buttons are adjacent to eachother and can be easily confused), that person's personal information is now in the hands of our website host. That is not acceptable.



I have seen lots of personal "stuff" these past several days...

Email'd your grandma on AOL about your personal medical condition? Maybe grandma mis-clicked the Report As Spam button? Maybe AOL tagged it automatically? I dunno... all I know is that now I know about your condition too and I've sent the message back to your primary domain contact email address to show you the complaint. (hope that was you and not your webmaster )

Talking about private meetings at work? Requesting a meeting about your new super secret product with your employees? One of those employees receives the email at AOL and had the same problem as grandma.... guess what happens next? Yep...now I know about your project and meeting times too!

Have a confirmed opt-in email list? Have an AOL user on it? Yep... I've had to send you a spam report too!

Did your message forums send a birthday greeting to an AOL user? Yeah..I know it did...because I had to investigate it and report back to you as spam.

Did someone receive an email alerting them that someone responded to a post in your message forum that they were subscribed to? Were they on AOL? Yep... that's where that last complaint I just spent time investigating and reporting came from.

Did you visit QuestAdmin and attempt to send yourself an invoice? Did it get CC'd to your AOL using accountant? That'd explain why it got reported as spam.

I even did one today... I kid you not...that was an email from a mutual client between AOL and FutureQuest whereby the client was trying to get help from AOL's Postmaster concerning the problem.... their email to the postmaster was reported as spam.

[Az1]

I have booted AOL and this site should do the same.
It is not spam it is for AOL to read.

[Betsy]

Well, part of the problem is that AOL is HUGE. When we pruned our mailing list to remove the AOL addresses, it was about 20% of the list. Thankfully, a very high percentage of those users have reubscribed using a different email address.

69 people are registered in the forums using an AOL email address. Only about 4 of them are recent or regular posters.

I'm exceptionally concerned about email originating from the forum being reported as spam. This could be post notification that many opted in to get, it could be an email received from someone who agreed in their profile to receive emails from other users, or even the happy birthday note the forum sends out to those who opted in to receive email from the forum. It hasn't happened here yet, but I figure it's only a matter of time before someone reports something coming from the forum as spam even though they opted in for. Friends who run forums on other topics elsewhere have been bitten by it and I count ourselves lucky we haven't been, yet.

It's important to recognize that the only spam reports coming in are all originating from AOL users.

I've already disabled the "email a friend" feature for all users because someone doesn't need to be a member in order to receive it. The next step is to either completely disable all email functions for the forums (would affect all members) and includes the ability to receive notification of new posts or replies, PM notifications received by email, and the ability to email other members from the forum interface.

The other option is to not allow AOL addresses to be used in forum registrations. We already ban hotmail and yahoo addresses because the times we were spammed ourselves in the forums, it came from people using throwaway email addresses (*note---all previously registered folks using those email addresses and those that wrote me and asked to be manually registered are not affected by this). If AOL addresses are banned, I can remove the ban on those other addresses and hope we don't spammed in the forum.

I'm not really sure what to do about AOL. They gave their users a tool they wanted and unfortunately a few of them don't grasp the concept of the difference between mail they asked for and actual spam. AOL is claiming they have reduced spam by 75% yet their members are not getting ALOT of email they actually want. Some of us in the geek forum I frequent are considering launching a campaign through banners with the headline,

"AOL Users--You don't know what you are missing"

Others I know are beginning to ban AOL users from their entire site one day a month to make the point. The only way the madness will end is if AOL users tell AOL their method isn't working.

I can tell you that if we get a spam report that originated from this forum, one of the two options outlined above will happen.

I'm open to suggestion as to which one it should be.

Betsy