Re: tr.im link shortening service shutdown, effective immediately

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Joel Snyder <Joel.Snyder () Opus1 COM>
Date: August 10, 2009 5:21:57 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, lpress () csudh edu
Subject: Re: [IP] tr.im link shortening service shutdown, effective  
immediately

Larry:

Either the blog posting is a bit confused, or perhaps you're drawing  
the wrong conclusion.

The Verizon SMTP service is there for people who have mail service  
providers that don't handle SMTP relay.  By definition, this counts as  
"your email service provider is broken."

In other words, if csudh.edu does not have a way for you to  
authenticate and send email via their server, then by definition  
csudh.edu needs to fix their email server.  They should not be forcing  
you to use some other mail server just to send mail with a csudh.edu  
return address.

It is almost never appropriate for someone to use their ISP's mail  
relay ; one of the big issues with this is that the current growth in  
reputation-based services means that you're going to have problems  
with your email when the ISP mail relay gets a bad reputation because  
one of the zillions of customers sent a bunch of spam. (I suspect that  
this is what prompted Verizon to shut their service down---customer  
complaints that they were getting blacklisted, since this is one of  
those no-win situations for the ISP).

You could argue that your ISP has an obligation to accept and relay  
your SMTP messages, even if you are not using your ISP-given mail  
account, but I think that fewer and fewer ISPs are providing this as a  
service whether free or paid for.  And certainly, this isn't going to  
be something you can really argue that the FCC should be requiring an  
ISP to provide--a mail server so that you can use some OTHER company's  
mail server which is misconfigured?

Interestingly enough, a second trend is also in place, which is ISPs  
FORCING your outbound mail through their mail proxy server, where they  
scan it for spam and viruses before shipping it off to the Internet-- 
even if you tried to connect directly to your own mail server.
This is usually an intercept on port 25, which leaves the mail  
submission port/protocol open for the purpose it was intended,  
although some ISPs are intercepting mail submission as well.

jms


David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
> From: Larry Press <lpress () csudh edu>
> Date: August 10, 2009 12:13:11 AM EDT
> To: "dave () farber net" <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Re: [IP] tr.im link shortening service shutdown, effective  
> immediately
> Dave,
> Verizon Wireless is still in business, but they too shut services  
> down at will.  They have announced that as of August 29, they will  
> stop their SMTP relay service:
> http://support.vzw.com/information/smtp_shutdown.html
> They claim it is a service they had been offering at no charge, but  
> it seems to me that it was part of the bundle the customers had  
> signed up for (not a separate line item on the bill).
> Would the FCC have jurisdiction or anything to say about this case?
> A bit more and some links at:
> http://cis471.blogspot.com/2009/08/verizon-wireless-terminates-free-email.html 
>  Larry Press
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--
Joel M Snyder, 1404 East Lind Road, Tucson, AZ, 85719
Senior Partner, Opus One       Phone: +1 520 324 0494
jms () Opus1 COM                http://www.opus1.com/jms




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