The old Spam Debate

I've been on the net for a loooooong time. I actaully remember when the web didn't exist at all (anyone remember Gopher?). Anyway, I've seen the Spam war from the front lines from the time it first started. I remember getting one or two spams and spending the time tracking down the senders and mailing their ISP or mailhost with my complaints. I remember it getting to be too much work and then using the spampcop service every day. I remember it all. It pretty much sucked.

But you know what? I got every email sent to me and that was a good thing. Today I'm not so sure that's the case in both directions. I don't think I get all that is mailed to me and I don't think all I mail gets through to its recipients. And that is a very bad thing.

The problem is the indiscriminant use of Spam Filters by ISPs and false positives. When I send email it goes over my Comcast connection, to my mail host (1and1) and then off to who knows where. I've got filtering turned off at 1and1 but who knows if Comcast is looking at my email or if 1and1 is doing any bulk domain blacklisting or if someone else along the chain is.

Over the past year or so I've seen two things happen. First is that the Spam to my mailbox (and I have 5 email accounts) has dropped to almost nil. Second is that 3-4 of every 100 emails I send don't get to their recipiants. Who knows how many I don't get.

My complaint is that I don't want my email touched and I don't want any domains blacklisted without my knowledge. That is certainly the case right now and I don't like it one bit.