New Contributor II
•
20 Messages
Outbound Spam Filters Have Run Amok -- Again
This issue has been around for a while. I discovered this week, however, it is still alive and well. And equally as frustrating as it was then.
Outbound email filtering appears to be broken -- again -- even if you use Webmail.
The dead horse was beaten pretty hard here (among many, many other threads):
forums.cox.com/.../552-5-2-0-bounce-error-sending-group-emails
The result/recommendation was to use Webmail instead of Outlook for outbound email, and to limit the distribution groups to 8 or less people (9 or more recipients triggered spam blocking/blackholing outbound and IP address email account suspension for 48 hours). OK. Fine. So I started using Webmail, and I started using only 8 recipients in the 'BCC' field (the "To:" is to myself/my Cox account). Worked fine. Until yesterday. Here's the timing of when my emails went out (all data obtained from the Webmail interface):
Email 1: 10:09 AM
Email 2: 10:10 AM
Email 3: 10:12 AM
Email 4: 10:13 AM
Email 5: 10:14 AM
Email 6: 10:15 AM
Email 7: 10:16 AM
Here's when they were delivered:
Email 1: 10:44 AM
Email 2: 11:06 AM
Email 3: 11:07 AM
Email 4: 2:59 PM
Email 5: Never delivered. No non-delivery report. Nothing.
Email 6: Never delivered. No non-delivery report. Nothing.
Email 7: Never delivered. No non-delivery report. Nothing.
OK, Cox, where did Emails 5, 6 and 7 go? I mean, they were emailed TO me BY me. Do you suppose I wished to receive them? Allow me to answer that. *YES!*. That's the way I know they didn't get blackholed. Kinda simple, really.
OK, here's where it gets more interesting. I now know some of the 'BCC' recipients in Email 5, 6 and 7 actually received the email. Wha'!?
So I'm left to surmise you spamholed MY email to ME. Hahahahahahahaha! So ironic. You protected me from *ME*. Hahahahahahaha!
And pitiful.
For me the issue is somewhat moot since I am taking people's advice and moving to Gmail instead of using Cox for my club's newsletter. But that's sad, really. Google will now get the ad revenue, not you, Cox. You really, really need to get better at this. 'Cuz like me, people will leave. You ain't the only game in (my) town. The entire experience since you "upgraded" has been, well, awful. OK. 'Nuff said.
OMAQman
New Contributor II
•
20 Messages
7 years ago
Just a quick update for anybody watching/listening. Gmail is also not a perfect answer. Instead of the extremely obnoxious blackholing outbound, Cox still is blackholing inbound. Some of the dance Club members are Cox email users. Like, oh, say, my wife. I sent out the newsletter to the 'bcc' group she is in, she never got it. I received no non-delivery report. She asked me, like, 2 days later if I had sent out the newsletter (because without an NDR or bounce error message, I had no reason to know she hadn't received it). OK, I went back into Gmail and forwarded her a copy from Sent mail. Later I asked her if she got it. Nope. Blackholed again. OK, so the email had two phreakin' hyper-links in it -- one to the Club's web site and one to our community's web site. I go back to the Sent folder and forward again, this time obfuscating the hyper-links. She replies within the hour that she got it.
CloudMark's filtering is WAY OVER THE TOP, Cox. They are literally breaking the Internet (OK, at least the email part of it). Ask yourself this, do you suppose my wife -- my WIFE -- would like to receive email from me? Allow me to tell you how she can, and how you can allow it while still battling the spam epidemic . . .
We use another/different cloud email filtering service at work (I'm not naming them because I am not promoting them). Their service generates a daily "digest" of "spam"-looking stuff it trapped (and this is entirely configurable BY THE USER). If I do nothing with the digest, all of that mail continues its trip down the blackhole. *BUT*, it also has an "Allow" button. You know, just in case it trapped something THAT WAS VALID EMAIL -- a *DECISION TO BE MADE BY THE USER*! (Like my wife (and others) could have made with the Dance Club newsletter, and hopefully Cloudmark's algorithm could "learn" from it.) CloudMark needs to learn this trick. It's the one THAT DOES NOT BREAK EMAIL as you have broken it by using overly aggressive filtering with no whitelisting and "disappearing" email with no notice to either sender or receiver. Broken. Totally broken. Fix it. Please.
2
0
bohenlv
New Contributor
•
18 Messages
7 years ago
I have a similar problem with outbound email, but only SINGLE emails to a SINGLE address (my attorney here in town). Every email I send to the attorney is never received, AND not in recipient's spam/junk folder. Sending from gmail works flawlessly. This recipient is in my Cox contact list, and I receive inbound email from him fine.
Never knew anything about outbound spam filtering - especially to a single address. Any way to address this????
I'd hate to have to resort to getnotify for every email I send via Cox.
2
0