One of my clients just got an e-mail from a customer of his who had received an e-mail via Buzzcast. The customer said that "Buzzcast is a known spam server, so plenty of people probably already have it blocked from their e-mail."

I don't see how this is possible, given that Buzzcast has only been around for a couple of months. Is there a known Spam server with a name close to "buzzcast"? Or do you guys have a dark secret I should know about? <G>

In any case, I need something to comfort my client with.

Hi Cancilla,

I am not aware of any spamming services called buzzcast (or similar), though admittedly I have never used a spamming service.

You are correct- buzzcast is a very new service (we just launched it last month) and we have no deep dark secret.

Sounds like an honest case of confusing buzzcast with something else. Buzzcast is a tool for interacting with an existing community of users, not a mass marketing/spam tool.

Ted O'Neill
CEO, Infopop Corporation

We're on the level.... As far as I know, noone currently has us blocked, and we're not listed as a spam source from ORBS or IMRSS....

You'r right, we've just started....

Can you forward me any messages or referring emails from the said "blocked account?"

They're probably thinking of the now defunct Flycast. The were mostly known as an online ad firm but they also were involved in mass mail campaigns (spam.) I believe CMGI bought all their assets.

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[This message was edited by Steven_M on 18 Mar 02 at 04:46 PM.]

Thanks to everyone for the reassurance. I think that the "Flycast" thing is the most likely solution to the whole problem.

Daniel: I appreciate the offer to help me with this, but I don't feel comfortable forwarding my e-mail that was sent to my client to you. I will, however, use the information from everyone's replies to write a nice note back to the gentleman who made the original mistake.

So far only one person has brought this up, and I think odds are that is all there will be. If more start to show up, I'll let y'all know.

--Dominick

Of course! I didn't want the private coorespondence.... I just wondered if there were any system generated messages, ie

"This mail message was blocked becuase the source domain has been identified as a spam source"

Or other such messages that are generated from spam guarding software

But it sounds like you have it all taken care of!

Good luck,

dan

Just to make sure all is clear: we've received no automated messages, just one note from a user. Thanks again!

We have some messages getting bounced as spam because of a companies filtering software.

Seems that messages sent as HTML with unsubscribe in the body of the message (added by InfoPop automatically) as a link can get you blocked.

We have about 20-30 such people that can't receive mail at their companies or schools because of how these institutions filter mail.

We include that link automatically so that clients can manage their own subscriptions..

I believe it's REQUIRED to be there by many states, perhaps more.. I don't recall the complete law behind it.

If the mail is being bounced as Spam at schools or businesses then your users may need to find an email address which does NOT bounce the newletters as Spam.

Regards,

Brett Harris
Infopop Corporation

Here is what we can do for you

We can change the wording a little bit so that while it's HTML it WILL NOT say "unsubscribe" in it - something a little more subtle which should slip in past that firewall.

Regards,

Brett Harris
Infopop Corporation

Thanks - I think those institutions need to relax a little with their spam guards.

We sent a message with the word naked bootleg (a football term) and really got the bounces...LOL

But yes changing the word as something other than unsubscribe will help.

Thanks, Gents.

We made that change on Friday thanks to the assistace of Rosemary

Regards,

Brett Harris
Infopop Corporation

We're not a buzzcast client, but I was reading this thread and thought I'd throw my 2-cents in.

We've been dealing with spam filters for Windows & .NET Magazine for quite some time now. We send out over 3.7 requested emails per month to our subscribers.

There are two primary forms of spam filters:

DNS Blacklists (DNSBL) - These are organizations that keep a list of the IP addresses of "known" spammers. Individuals or companies can point their email servers to a DNSBL and if any email comes in from an IP on the DNSBL it doesn't go through. This is the one major spam filter technology that Buzzcast needs to really keep its eye on. A great resource to see if a domain or IP is on a DNSBL is http://relays.osirusoft.com/cgi-bin/rbcheck.cgi Just type in the domain or IP and this tool will tell you if its on any of 43 DNSBLs. Getting off a DNSBL is another story...

Content Filtering - This can happen either at the email server level or at the email client level. Content filtering looks for various phrase, word, or character combinations and if it encounters one of those combinations in the title or body of your email, it will think it's spam and delete it. The new version of MS Outlook has this kind of spam protection built in.

Hope this helps somewhat...

--Eric Shanfelt