I am experiencing emails bouncing back due to them being perceived as spam. This is not with all my emails. Is there not a way in which Vodacom is able to monitor their own email system and pick up that their (our!) smtp is being blacklisted? And if so, to contact the appropriate ISP to sort it out? I have never experienced this with my other service provider, XSInet.
There are hundreds of rules running against mail to determine potential spamming. Best is actually to mail
[email protected] and report the problem.
There is an extensive monitoring system in place to monitor for any activities that could result in a blacklist; spamming, viruses, etc.
I saw some stats today showing the rate of filtering happening on the servers. How's this:
The systems are currently removing 300 messages per
SECOND containing viruses! The amount of mail going through the servers is quite staggering and it's not impossible for a rouge message to slip through and cause a blacklist.
On top of this, anyone can lodge a 'spam complaint' that could result in a blacklist if we cannot prove within hours (24 hours per day) that it's not a real spam case. Let me give an example:
Someone sends out a mail, a recipient decides it's spam (it might not be), he reports it, Vodacom gets an alert on the complaint (2am, for example), we now have a few hours to get hold of the 'spammer' to sort it out, if not; automatic blacklist.
So it's an on-going challenge to manage the process, in a sense we're suffering from the massive success of the service, with a userbase that's hit 7 digits.
When the forum asked for, and got, a SMTP relay a year ago, it was a small 'hand-me'down' server the guys had spare. Today it's a multi-server / multi-cpu architecture running massive engines!
But we can always do better, so if you're a s**t-hot mail server / spam manager, PM me....
