[UPDATED] AOL thinks I'm a spammer - can anyone help?

About two weeks ago, AOL started blocking me from sending e-mail to anyone with an @aol.com e-mail address. I'm getting the old, "users have reported you as spam" error, which actually leads me to believe that this is likely an abusive effort by some morons to fuck with me, which happens more frequently than you'd believe. I've spoken with my hosting providers at Logjamming, and AOL is apparently just giving them a big old runaround.

If anyone reading this knows someone at AOL, or can somehow help me get this resolved, I'd be most grateful.

This is like dealing with the DMV, except the DMV is in India.

UPDATE: Thanks for all the great advice, everyone. It turns out that my mailserver's IP is not on a single black hole list, and shows no signs of compromise, so this is entirely an AOL matter. I was contacted by a very helpful AOL employee . . . but when I attempted to reply, it was bounced. This really absurd and silly, and I've been able to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing. I mean, I can't even reply to the people who are trying to help me get off the blacklist, because I'm on the blacklist. The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm asked to fill out at 27B(stroke)6 before it's all over.

Comments

[Sean W]

I do tech support for an ISP and we've had that problem recently. AOL blocked everyone who has an account with us (several hundred thousand users) from sending any e-mail to AOL users. Their server is totally frakked for some reason.

[neticen]

Hey Wil,

I work for a Credit Union and we had the same problem with our members reporting our e-statement notifications as SPAM. We applied and were granted Whitelist status with AOL.

http://postmaster.info.aol.com/tools/whitelist_guides.html

Everything has been great since then. Good luck. If you need a bit more help, let me know via my email williamsd.o.t.jeremya.t.macd.o.t.com.

[Mandy]

I got the exact same thing with my domain thanks to some horrid ass bitter bastards who were mad at me. Mine was with SBC DSL. At this point, it's still irritating.

I feel your pain.

[Craig S. Cottingham]

AOL is trying to tell you that anyone who uses AOL for their primary email account doesn't deserve to get email from Wil Wheaton. :-)

[wolfger]

No shit. I'm with Craig... nobody using AOL deserves e-mail form you. The one (and likely only) solution to this problem is for people to quit using AOL.

Oh, and it might help if you quit spamming folks. ;-)

[Diana]

I just did this recently. You just have to call the # 1.888.212.5537 with the ip addresses that are blocked. I got the number from http://postmaster.info.aol.com/contact/index.html in case you need another phone number.

When I called, I was only on for like, 5 minutes, surprisingly. I was asked about log messages, I gave her something that looked she checked them, and that was that. AOL won't remove it unless it's the server's host that is requesting it, and it happens when someone hits the spam button on an E-Mail.

[threechordme]

um no but i can drive to their corporate headquarters in about 25 minutes?
we could so hold a massive protest!

[chuckgoolsbee]

I run a large web-hosting & colocation facility, and deal with this sort of stuff all the time. This particular issue is a VERY common problem, as AOL's abuse system is user-generated - and as we all know, nobody has more technically challenged users than AOL. However, AOL's Postmaster Group is actually staffed by a cadre of elite mail and network ninjas who are quite responsive and very easy to work with. It is a multi-step process, but not very painful.

FIRST make sure your DNS house is in order. Any host that sends mail has to have matching forward and reverse DNS records. Nobody will even talk to you about whitelisting until that hurdle is cleared.

After that, there is not much YOU can do as an "end user" but if your web hosts (or their network/colo provider more likely, as the IP space is more important than the domain name(s)) have any brains, they can contact AOL's Postmaster Group and set up what is called a "feedback loop" for your network's IP range. From that, they can discern how much ACTUAL spam is being generated by the netblock. Form abuse on webservers is responsible for a shocking amount of spam. If your web host doesn't have good control of their own servers, you're basically screwed. AOL's feedback loop is an excellent canary-in-the-coalmine for detecting such issues. Next, once the trust relationship has been built between them and AOL (takes about 30 days) they can apply to have your SMTP relay server white-listed by AOL.

This WILL NOT prevent AOL users from reporting your mail as spam... there is no technological cure for idiocy... yet. However, you will now get some feedback as to which of the morons are reporting you so you can remove them from your list(s).

Point your hosting provider here to get started:
http://postmaster.info.aol.com/

Finally, look at the error messages in the bounces to AOL. Do they have an error code and URL embedded? Go read that page as it may not even be user-generated spam reporting, but instead a rules-based refusal triggered by message content. If you have 421 errors, that mail will NEVER get through to AOL, even if your servers are white-listed.

I've been through this process a half dozen times for a few netblocks we control. Feel free to ping me if you have any questions.

--chuck
http://chuck.goolsbee.org

[TheNet411]

My company hosts email for several domains and this has been happening A LOT lately. For each domain that is accused of SPAMMING, you have to contact them (using the numbers found here: http://postmaster.info.aol.com/contact/index.html) and after you contact them, you have to create an abuse email address for the domain (hosted on the blocked IP) in question. THEN, you have to be assure them that you are no longer SPAMMING. Usually takes about a week to prove that no more SPAM is coming from your domain. How do they verify? No one can hit that dreaded SPAM button during that period. If they do, they send you an abuse report and you have to answer for it. Which means you have to somehow prove that you didn't SPAM them. FINALLY, when they feel like it, they remove you. We have had only one client go through the entire process. The rest of them, after we tell them what is involved, decide that communicating with AOL members just isn't worth the time.

[MacBros]

When I did tech support, Comcast users would get blocked by AOL. It's a common thing.

It's been awhile since I've done that job, but if you're on Comcast, go to comcast web site, I think they might have a FAQ there.

[tjp]

I have the same problem with AOL. They don't like addresses from "private" domains such as yours or mine (pafundi.com) I have gone round and round with them and finally gave up and stopped sending email to people with AOL addresses.
======================
Number of Operations Iraq Freedom and Enduring Freedom casualties
as confirmed by U.S. Central Command: 3789

[Bill]

I'm with Craig and wolfger. Nobody who is still using AOL deserves to get email from ANYBODY, let alone Wil. ;)

[OddieTaco]

So, one thing that you might look at doing, is adding the X-List-Unsubscribe: header to your emails, especially if it is your emails that are being reported as Spam. I've heard, though I don't have independent confirmation, that if AOL sees that header, they'll replace the "Report as Spam" button with an "Unsubscribe from this List" button.

[tony mcdowell]

Wil (and others),

are you sure that the mails are getting kicked because people are reporting you as spam? If you'll take a trip down memory lane to mid-2005, AOL was going to start bouncing mails that don't come from large domains that pay a "email tax". While they've reduced this policy from the gradiose form it was initially going to take, they do enforce it on a smaller scale to cut back on the "mom-and-pop" spammers.

You might need to have your AOL-based users explicity allow mass-mailings coming from you.

just food for thought
-tony

[LoveAndRockets2000]

I worked at many dot-coms back in the day in many different capacities. One time I found myself answering phones at Pets.com. Whenever someone with an AOL account would call or write, it was invariably a stupid question--a problem between the chair and keyboard.

(For some reason, AOLers would call and say they can't find Pets.com on the interwebs. I would direct them to type "www.pets.com" in the address bar. They said they did and still weren't on the site. After much back-and-forth I found they were typing Pets.com into the AOL search bar or the AskJeeves search bar. They didn't click on the results, they just didn't see the sock puppet and thought the Internet was broken.)

One AOL woman ordered a 50 lb bag of dog food and UPS left it on her doorstep. She wanted us to send someone to move it inside. I asked if she had any friends or neighbors. She said "This is New York, no one has friends or neighbors." I mean, what do you say to that? Seriously.

Enough of Memory Lane. I'm an avid reader of your blog and other writings. Been a fan a long time. CHeers.

[nekodojo]

I think AOL gets a bad rap because they are aggressive in fighting spam, and there are any number of horror stories from folks who have been blocked. I have dealt with AOL blocking issues before (at two different companies in fact) and I firmly believe AOL are definitely the good guys.

I also believe if you're being blocked, there's a good reason for it and your ISP needs to clean house. The block patterns are usually based on the IP of the sending server, not your email address, so activity from other bad actors at your ISP can affect everyone. If your ISP doesn't clean up their act enough to keep AOL from blocking, move your email account to a competitor, and ask them if they are whitelisted by AOL first. Either the crap mail is actually coming from your ISP, or your ISP "forwards" mail for some domains to AOL, effectively laundering it. Both cases are relatively easy to clean up, if your ISP cares about doing the right thing.

Some people will get up in arms and blame AOL for the (actually somewhat moderate) blocking that they do. Everyone should keep in mind that the REAL enemy is the spammer. Not only do spammers increase costs for everyone else, and make email no longer a clear, reliable medium, they have done even worse: they have shat in the fountain, taking a wonderful thing and making it just a little bit shitty. For more on the emotional/psychological impact of spam, I refer you to the original post by Norman De Forest called "A Hidden Cost of Spam" . I submit that by acting to block spammers, AOL is not only protecting their customers, they are also benefitting all Internet users by forcing bad (or even indifferent) actors to toe the line.

[Liz]

I pointed a friend this way who might be able to help. Let's hope! --liz

[Alan]

Why, I got spam today that had my email address as the sender.

In the past, I've had spam that I didn't send emails bounce back to me as undeliverable. Usually shortly followed by people emailing me to remove me from their list.

I seriously hate spam.

Seriously.

[Matt D]

Wheat/Chaff Filter:

The advice that chuckgoolsbee gave (and what neticen alluded to) is going to be helpful with a 99.999% certainty.

Worth mentioning is that the hosting provider whose problem this is to solve is the company on the other end of your SMTP server setting. In practice, this is frequently not the company that provides your web service, and for some people, may not even be the company that provides the POP3 or IMAP service.

Assuming the problem is with your @wilwheaton.net address, and your outbound (SMTP) setting is going through logjamming/ai.net/alticon, you probably need to get in touch with logjamming, who will get in touch with alticon, who will get in touch with AOL.

If your SMTP is running through your local internet access provider (Cable/DSL/etc.), you'll need to contact them, and they will contact AOL.

In either case, forward them the URL to the AOL postmaster site that was already mentioned.

As an aside, I'll let you in on what is, as far as I can tell, the single biggest reason that the IP addresses of hosting providers get listed on AOL's throttling list (it's not actually a blacklist, but that's a different discussion), and it's something that nekodojo touched upon.

Say there's a web hosting provider called "Acme.wb". One of Acme's customers is a guy named Bill. Bill is also an AOL user. When Bill set up his account, he made the somewhat reasonable observation that he didn't want to have to check his mail in multiple places. He'd like people who are visiting his site to be able to send mail to him at "bill@baggi.ns", but he's got a lot of history invested in his AOL account. Somebody gets the bright idea that he could forward mail coming to "bill@baggi.ns" to his AOL address, "bbaggins1937@aol.zz".

A helpful lass at Acme gets his automated mail forwarding set up, and he's good to go...

...until a spammer sends a couple of messages to bill@baggi.ns, which get forwarded by the ACME mail server to the AOL mail server. When Bill marks the messages as SPAM the next morning, AOL counts that as a negative mark against the ACME mail server, because as far as AOL is concerned, that's where the SPAM came from.

This is why customers at some hosting providers, including the one I work for, aren't allowed to forward mail to AOL. A little bit of analysis showed that that was the best compromise between offering a complete service and shooting ourselves in the foot when it came time to deliver on that service.

Anyway, sorry that ended up so long, but it's a sore spot of mine, and the mechanics of it are understood by so few people (as compared to those who use e-mail), that any time I have the opportunity to educate, I jump on it.

[Thorpe89]

You gotta love AOL. ;)

[HPunster]

[Insert obligatory Python quote here]

[LinksMonkey]

Attention - AOL users should set up orange safety cones around their computer work areas before reading this comment.

With Yahoo! Mail, I have to submit an address into my address book or it ends up in my junk email folder. Maybe AOLers have to do the same if they want a reply. But you can't tell them that 'cause they won't get your email. Crazy ass Internet!

Maybe you could set up a special account just for emailing AOLers.

And take the spam out of the can before you email it to them also.

Off-topic - I used to love those free coasters they used to send in the mail.

[fritzk3]

While I'll consider that AOL might be trying to do the Right Thing here... I still can't forgive them for pissing all over the Internet gene pool by mailing CDs to every last known mailbox in the U.S.

If I had a nickel for everytime I heard an AOL lamer say, "I have the Internet *on my computer*!!"

O RLY? Does Al Gore know that you have all the hardware that he invented, sitting right there in your house?

*deep breath*

Hope you can get it figured out, Wil. Looks like more than a few people here have offered up what might be helpful solutions.

[ToddPM]

Not so much a solution as another potential explanation as to how this might happen:

When I worked with a web host that provided e-mail newsletter services, we found that a lot of AOL users abuse the "Report as spam" button by using it instead of the Trash button, thinking one was as good as the other. That prompted us to re-vamp our newsletter generator to include address verification upon sign-up and the inclusion of an unsubscribe link in every newsletter. Other than that, there wasn't much else we could do.

At this point in the game, if there are still people who complain about not being able to receive your e-mails to an AOL account then I firmly believe that recommending they pick up a free e-mail account from G-mail or elsewhere is not being a techno-snob. It's being helpful.

[Christina]

I think many of the posters above have basically covered it, but I do want to point out that in my experience (as former email admin for a University), AOL blocks based primarily on IP address, not on individual email address or DNS domain. So the problem needs to be handled by your outgoing SMTP provider (which I'm guessing is Alticon). The hardest issue to get around is if a fellow Alticon user is forwarding their email to AOL, and happens to be getting a lot of spam, and doesn't realize that when they click that stupid "This is spam" button that they are blocking the whole domain. AOL does not care whether the spam ORIGINATED from your domain - they only look at the last hop. If that's the case, it can be challenging to figure out the source of the problem, but hopefully Alticon keeps reasonable logs and can do some analysis of how much mail is getting sent to AOL and from whom. Unfortunately, the "feedback loop" won't help too much in tracking the problem, because email addresses are removed from the copies of the spam they provide you for privacy reasons.