Subject: Re: [Asrg] Bogus News Article - FTC's do-not-call registry email blocked by Yahoo

From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2003 00:54:37 -0400

At 04:29 AM 6/29/2003 +0000, John R. Levine wrote:

> >Just as some feared, Yahoo's spam filters blocked confirmation emails from
> >the FTC's Do Not Call registry according to a Wired News Article
>
>  ... which is based on uninformed and incorrect speculation.
>
>I asked a manager I know at Yahoo.  He checked the IP range that the
>donotcall mail is coming from, and verified that no, they're not
>blocking it.  Some might have been filtered into the "bulk" folders,
>but it wasn't blocked.

It was filtered not blocked, but as far as I know all spam at Yahoo goes to 
bulk mail folders. From the article:
"representatives note that the company does not completely block e-mail, 
but sends them to a bulk mail folder for users to review. "

>What really happened is that the servers were grossly overloaded and
>have been taking up to 11 hours to send out confirmation mail, and
>users misinterpreted the delay as blockage.
>
>Please avoid spreading incorrect rumors.  That does nobody any good.

Here is the relevant quote from the Wired News article 
(http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59427,00.html):

---snip---
The glitch was discovered by Washington security firm NetFrameworks during 
routine evaluations of spam filters that the company performs for its clients.

Our tests showed that Yahoo's spam filter was automatically sending the 
confirmation messages from the do-not-call list into users' bulk-mail 
folders," said NetFrameworks co-founder and CTO Eric Greenberg. "The irony 
of it is that the spam filter is blocking the very thing that's supposed to 
help you stop getting spam over the phone."
---snip---

The origin of this is from NetFramework's press release 
(http://www.netframeworks.com/press.php?newsID=32):

---snip----
NetFrameworks, Inc. today announced that its researchers have discovered 
that leading spam blocking systems, including a top processor of email 
worldwide, Yahoo!, are blocking email confirmations from the Federal Do Not 
Call Registry launched this morning by the Federal Trade Commission.
----snip---  

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From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 22:09:23 -0400

At 01:57 AM 7/1/2003 +0000, John R. Levine wrote:

> > Essentially all spam at Yahoo (using Spam Guard) is blocked and
> > placed into a bulk mail folder. Therefore, there>is no distinction
> > between saying that a mail message was "placed in the bulk mail
> > folder" or "blocked by spam filters" ...
>
>I checked back with my source, and he confirms that although the
>details of Yahoo's spam filters are (not surprisingly) confidential,
>it's clear that like everyone else they both sidestream some mail into
>bulk mail folders and reject some mail outright.  See, for example,
>their page http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/spam/spam-17.html at
>which gives mailers advice to keep their mail from being rejected or
>sidestreamed.

Thank you for pointing out the difference between blocking/rejection and 
moving email to bulk folders. This is an important distinction that must be 
kept in mind for the future.

>In any event, there's no shame in making the occasional mistake, so
>I'm not going to beat this particular horse any more.  But please,
>let's try not to leap to conclusions in the future.

The conclusion was not mine but rather Wired's based on a NetFrameworks's 
report. I personally was not aware that Yahoo rejects email outright, I 
though that they put ALL spam into the bulk folder.

Yakov