Excite.com is blocking Googlemail.com - Is this legal?

Hi all,

I've had a few problems recently sending emails from my googlemail.com
account to a friend's account on excite.com.

50% of the time, depending upon which one of Google's many servers
handles my email, Excite rejects my email saying the ISP you are
sending from is a source of SPAM.

Failure notice is:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 9): 554 5.7.1 Service unavailable;
Client host [64.233.184.239] blocked using dynablock.excite.com; Your
message could not be delivered due to complaints we received regarding
the IP address you're using or your ISP. See http://blackholes.excite.com/
Error: WS-02

I complained to Excite but they just sent me an automated email saying
my ISP is a spammer.

I believe both companies are based in the USA, so isn't there some
sort of anti-competitive law over there which says you can't block
your competitors services? Also, I've heard about something called
class-action suits, is that where all Google's customers join forces
to sue Excite?

I had a look at Google's "Contact us" web page, and I couldn't find
anyway to report a "please sue your competitor" type problem. The
closest I found was spam & abuse, so I tried abuse.

Hopefully, the 2 companies can sort this out themselves, but I thought
it worth posting here to see if anyone else was having the same
problem?

Regards,
Ken

Re: Excite.com is blocking Googlemail.com - Is this legal?

On Tue, 1 May 2007, ken.r.booth@googlemail.com wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I've had a few problems recently sending emails from my googlemail.com
> account to a friend's account on excite.com.
>
> 50% of the time, depending upon which one of Google's many servers
> handles my email, Excite rejects my email saying the ISP you are
> sending from is a source of SPAM.
>

If your friend's isp is blocking Google, then all you can do really is
recommend your friend to obtain an email address with a provider that is
not so stupid. Otherwise he/she will not be able to receive emails from
you.

It is quite simple really; if these big companies want to cut themselves
off from the internet, allow them to do so and walk away from them.
Forget the the legal stuff - it is a silly game to play. Be practical.

--
Alan

( If replying by mail, please note that all "sardines" are canned.
However, unless this a very old message, a "tuna" will swim right
through. )

Re: Excite.com is blocking Googlemail.com - Is this legal?

In news:1178031311.691686.163220@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com,
ken.r.booth@googlemail.com wrote:

> I've had a few problems recently sending emails from my googlemail.com
> account to a friend's account on excite.com.
>
> 50% of the time, depending upon which one of Google's many servers
> handles my email, Excite rejects my email saying the ISP you are
> sending from is a source of SPAM.
....
> I complained to Excite but they just sent me an automated email saying
> my ISP is a spammer.
>
> I believe both companies are based in the USA, so isn't there some
> sort of anti-competitive law over there which says you can't block
> your competitors services?

They're right; googlemail and gmail ARE the source of as much spam as AOL
used to be, and not only email, but Usenet spam as well.

It's a free country, and anyone can reject email from anyone else if they so
choose. Period. My advice to you is to use a reputable email provider
instead of google.

Re: Excite.com is blocking Googlemail.com - Is this legal?

On May 2, 12:20 pm, "Patrick" wrote:
> Innews:1178031311.691686.163220@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com ,
>
>
>
....
>
> They're right; googlemail and gmail ARE the source of as much spam as AOL
> used to be, and not only email, but Usenet spam as well.

I don't think this is right. Of the 3698 messages in my spam folder
(which is post-spamhaus) two are from any of the 176 google mail
servers (http://www.trustedsource.org/query.php?q=google.com) all of
which have names of the form:

*-out-*google.com.

Since spamhaus filters about 75% of incoming mail and no gmail, that
suggests that gmail is the source of about .01% of my incoming spam.

>
> It's a free country, and anyone can reject email from anyone else if they so
> choose. Period.

Yes, if ISP weren't free to reject mail, spammers would hide behind
that requirement and spam would be much worse.

Possibly the rejections are based on content, not connecting IP
address? ISP "error" messages are not known for high accuracy.

Daniel Feenberg

Re: Excite.com is blocking Googlemail.com - Is this legal?

In news:1178281394.558365.296040@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com,
feenberg@gmail.com wrote:

>> They're right; googlemail and gmail ARE the source of as much spam
>> as AOL used to be, and not only email, but Usenet spam as well.
>
> I don't think this is right. Of the 3698 messages in my spam folder ...

It's NOT "all about you", but rather the world of email in general and the
spam content that originates from google.