AOL - Making A List,...

[HooBoy]

Yesterday I emailed a confirmation message to a reviewer for a review that was posted last night as I normally do. Moments later it was bounced back to me by AOL with the following message:

 

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----

----- Transcript of session follows ----- ... while talking to mailin-03.mx.aol.com.:

<<< 554 TRANSACTION FAILED: (HVU:B1) The URL contained in your email to AOL members has generated a high volume of complaints.??Per our Unsolic

554 ...Service unavailable

 

Thinking AOL’s new SPAM filter was rejecting email from my domain, male4malescorts.com, I resent the confirmation using my Earthlink account. Moments later, a second bounce back contained the same message. The ONLY URL in the email was a URL within the review itself, for bigmuscle.com, in Franco’s review.

 

I thought surely content of our email is not being scrutinized, so I deleted the URL in the body of the email before sending it a third time. This time it went through with no problem and no URL in the body.

 

Well, folks, it looks like AOL is scanning our email. They are reading our email and making judgment calls on whether it is appropriate.

 

I am not sure if other ISP’s are reading email looking for what they deem is offensive, but it is something to think about.

 

By the way, I sent email from [email protected] to my AOL account and it went directly into their SPAM folder, so if you write me and do not hear from me, check on the bottom left of your mail window, click on the SPAM folder. You might that you’ve won the Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes. After all, they’ve been spamming our postal boxes for years.

[Guest Utopia]

Making a list and checking it twice AOL will determine who is naughty and who is nice . Their new "spam filters" are just that scanners not unlike what the original Prodigy service used to implement to monitor their online newsroup postings. It looks for pharses or words that are part of this massive list. Also as you mentioned HooBoy, much "good" email is ending up in thir new spam folder and people do need to check it everyday.

 

AOL bringing better censorship to our lives .

===

"You realize that life goes fast

It's hard to make the good things last"

[Guest Utopia]

I forgot to mentioned that after 10 off and on years of using AOL I have finally made a clean break. No more BYOA no nothing. I rather spend my 9.95 (soon to be 14.95) per month on online porn.

===

"You realize that life goes fast

It's hard to make the good things last"

[Flower]

 

HOO--JFYI-- While I assume that most of you have the AOL v9 or v8 for you PC's, I use a Mac and the OSx v10.3 allows me to choose how to set the filter--I have it set to recieve mail from "EVERYONE."

 

I cut 'n pasted your post verbatum and put "[email protected]" as the subject line and emailed from my Yahoo account--it came thru immediately. I have no idea if your spam filter on PC versions 8 and 9 allow such an adjustment, but it's not often something is offered for a Mac and not for a PC.

[Guest Utopia]

HiFlower, it is more than the senders domain. It is scanning emails for objectional words, urls and pics. The windows version of 8 & 9.0 does have a filter that can be set by the user. The problem is more with AOL's use of text scanning and it does block certain emails. I have had it happen to me.

 

In fact, there is at least one ad on american male and rentboy where the escort is imploring (is that a word?) people to email him back with a different email address as 19 of 22 (I believe) replies of his have bounced back from AOL. This appears to be a like problem that HooBoy had.

[Guest TommyTam]

I also have problem with AOL too, 1 to 2 out of 10 e-mails to my aol customer's e-mail address will bounce back...last time when I send my customer my e-Christmas card, a lot of them got filter to Junk mail folder...since my website address and e-mail don't have any "Gay" or "Sex" word on it...I have no idea how and why they filter out my e-mail!

Tommy Tam

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for more information please send e-mail to [email protected] or [email protected]

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

FYI

 

Version 10.3 is the current version of AOL for OS X, not a reference to the Mac operating system. Mac Users like me who also have Mac OS 9.2 or earlier are still stuck with AOL 5.0, which has neither a spam folder nor spam filter.

 

There are mail controls on all of these versions of AOL, to accept e-mail from everyone. I believe the spam folder feature (similar to what I have on my Yahoo account and I presume most people have on other such accounts, i.e. Hot Mail, etc.) does not exist in AOL for Mac.

 

 

well, actually . . . it depends . . .

 

http://www.gaydar.co.uk/francodisantis

[Guest Tristan]

After reading through this thread, I decided to check my spam folders on AOL. I found an e-mail from the Gap notifying me of a store offer. I guess their filters don't differentiate between messages from legitimate stores, which you may want to receive, and all the bogus messages on mortgages, viagra deals, and penis enlargement. I see a difference between the e-mails, though I suppose some people would not. Some of the legitimate store e-mails have online or store coupons in them, which I do want to receive. Anyway it really does pay to check the Spam folder. Thanks for pointing this out. BTW: If you're still on AOL V8.0, you have to log in through AOL on the Web to access the Spam folder. On AOL V9.0, I believe the folder is right there.

[Rick Munroe]

Well, I just sent myself an email (I use AOL) through Rentboy's email system and it hasn't arrived. I wonder if it takes more than twenty minutes or if it should be immediate...

 

I have a few email addresses that I'm constantly checking, and AOL is just very convenient for switching back and forth with ease. I hated hotmail because I had to keep manually typing in each email address and password everytime I wanted to switch to a different address. Can anyone recommend something as easy as AOL but without the Nazi aspect? Although...I hate to change my email address again. Uggh.

[+ deej]

I wouldn't recommend hotmail, yahoo, or any of the "free" email providers for your primary contact email, any more than I'd recommend AOL. The "free" providers can impose any limitations they like at any time. IOW they can make up the rules as they go along. AOL treats their customers the same way, making rules as they go without telling you they've changed the rules.

 

The BEST way to go is to set up your own domain with a hosting company and then you can have any email addresses you like, without using proprietary access tools like the AOL client or the hotmail website. Of course, this is also the most work since you have to do all the spam management yourself. :-( But it's the only way to have full control over what is/isn't delivered to your inbox.

 

I've seen hosting for as little as $10/month.

[Rick Munroe]

This is the response I got from rentboy when I wrote to ask what was up: "AOL and Hotmail recently turned on their spam filters - it is a server-side filter. This is classifying emails sent from our servers as spam. So far, one of the major email providers without a server-side filter is Yahoo Mail." So I guess this means I need to now switch to a yahoo account. Anyone have any other thoughts? Oh and if you've written to Derek and me thru rentboy but we never responded, this is why.

[Rick Munroe]

>The BEST way to go is to set up your own domain with a hosting

>company

 

>I've seen hosting for as little as $10/month.

 

Well, I guess it's time to get a website already. As dumb as it sounds, I have been paying for 3 different domain names for the past 3 years, as I keep saying, "Next month, I'll finally make that website." Deej, can you recommend actual hosts...and do I need to bring the host a gift? I'm not up on the latest hosting etiquette.

[Rick Munroe]

>So I guess this means I need to now switch to a yahoo account.

> Anyone have any other thoughts?

 

Rick, you should have read deej's post above before you posted this post.

 

-Rick

[Guest TommyTam]

I don't like to use my own domain e-mail address (even I have ten of them)because own domain address a lot of them you only can get your own e-mail from your own computer, but Hotmail and Yahoo you can always check your e-mail from internet cafe or any other computer, that is must for me, since I travel a lot. I do like my Hotmail service, if you pay the $19.95 service fee they really give you a lot of space and I can send more that 99 e-mails per day (you only can send 99 e-mails if you don't pay the fee!), if you need to send a group e-mail via Hotmail, just using address book it is easy I never manually type in any of the address :+

 

Tommy Tam

Best Asian Escort in the State

512-635-0379

Website: http://www.tommytx.com

Review: http://www.male4malescorts.com/reviews/tommytamaustin.html

for more information please send e-mail to [email protected] or [email protected]

[Guest Tampa Yankee]

> ...and do I need to bring the host a gift? I'm not up on

>the latest hosting etiquette.

>

 

I hear that gold, frakencense and myrrh are in season. :+

[theDCeBOY]

i pay $7 a month rick... email me ([email protected]) and i'll give you the info.

[HooBoy]

You are correct, Mr. Flower, however because AOL appeals to the lowest common demoninator, I find that people who use it are not inclined to sniff out ways to make the improvements that are available to them. They are content with the status quo. And Virgin Airlines is flat out of luck in getting email alerts to their customers who use AOL, in most cases.

 

Obla Di, Obla Da!

[HooBoy]

Spam Filters

 

Microsoft revamped their professional email program with Outlook 2003, which you can buy as a stand alone product (around $100) without going for the entire Office suite, which is not much changed from previous years,

 

One of the new Outlook features that I like is the Spam filter, which the user ultimately controls. However, I get a lot of spam that appears to come from [email protected]. However, on digging through the headers of the email, I learned that most of it orginates in Asia. The pisser is Microsoft's spam filter does not dig deep enough and all the mail I send is discarded, (I also use Cloudmark's Spam filter and theirs also only filters the visible "From" line.)

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

Solutions

 

There are solutions for someone who has these problems and does not need or want their own domain.

 

WebMail Assistant (for Windows) and Entourage (for Mac users) are both software programs which allow someone with multiple ISP or web mail accounts to manage them all from one interface. Additional features can include contact information and other account management type activities, including spam filters. Both can be downloaded for a fee.

 

I am sure there is other software available. These are two which I know have good reviews and which friends of mine use. I do not employ such programs because I do not have (nor am I interested in managing) that many accounts.

[+ deej]

>Well, I guess it's time to get a website already. As dumb as

>it sounds, I have been paying for 3 different domain names for

>the past 3 years, as I keep saying, "Next month, I'll finally

>make that website."

 

You don't actually need a website. The domain can be for email-only if you don't feel like putting up a simple website.

 

>Deej, can you recommend actual

>hosts...and do I need to bring the host a gift? I'm not up on

>the latest hosting etiquette.

 

My current host is way overkill for my needs, but I have a couple of commercial sites with them on a dedicated server so it's a tidy package. Don't know their offerings on the lower end of the spectrum. I can't give any specific recommendations. Sorry.

 

I seem to remember the hosting company Ethan uses is cheap, as he says, and seemed to have attractive packages last time I looked.

[+ deej]

>I don't like to use my own domain e-mail address (even I have

>ten of them)because own domain address a lot of them you only

>can get your own e-mail from your own computer

 

Actually, the restriction is *sending*. }( You can get email from any pop3 server from any computer assuming you know how to set it up. And most ISP's offer a webmail interface to their pop3 accounts these days.

[+ deej]

RE: Spam Filters

 

>One of the new Outlook features that I like is the Spam

>filter

 

I detest all variants of the Outlook spam filter. It isn't smart enough to be useful and it's too dumb to care.

 

I use Outlook to handle all email, but I use a 3rd party product called MailWasher Pro to handle spam filtering.

[theDCeBOY]

it isn't the same one i used before. i wonder if i can get a referral bonus or something?

[Guest 10cc]

deej has the best solution on email accounts. About a year ago I purchased my own domain from godaddy.com $6.95 per year and one of their web mail accounts for 9.95 per year with quite a few features (the packages that are slightly more offer even more). I park my domain on godaddy for free.

 

I have exceptional spam filters, I can use my Outlook pop to download my emails when I'm home or when away I can access my account online, just as if you would hotmail or yahoo without any ads.

 

Plus I can setup individual alias or use my mail name as a "catch all" for anything @mydomain.com.

 

At one point I had been checking 12 different email addresses on a regular basis. Now I can check just one.

 

To stay in touch with my AOL pals I use AIM.

 

Going the route as outlined about is one of the best online decisions I have made.

[luv2rim]

HooBoy,

 

Thanks for the warning. I had sent an AOL e-mail to an escort and never heard back. Read this note and found my spam folder and sure enough his reply was in it. Evidently AOL has just set everyones account to spam protected. I have since altered my AOL preferences. Looks like AOL agrees with the policies of Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Bush.