>> Many many of our licensees have (had!) exactly that problem. > > what's really funny, in a sick and sad way, is that I've been having > a, well, I can't call it a discussion, with AOL on a TOS violation > report they sent me today, which was from a double-opt-in mailing > list. I'm going to blog pieces of it later, but suffice it to say, it > was not AOL's best day, or the user involved, and if that's how > they're handling spam blocking and reporting, then god help ALL aol > users.
AOL has many things going on right now..their new software allows a user to report something as spam by simply clicking on a button, which is, as I understand it, right next to other buttons on which the user would otherwise click. As a result, AOL users are suddenly generating large numbers of spam reports, sometimes unintentionally, often without something being spam. And, obviously, their inbound spam control is sub-optimal too (that said, getting it just right is something which no large U.S. ISP of which I'm aware has yet done). In fact, our having our licensees whitelisted at AOL is one of the most oft-cited "the thing which convinced me"s for list owners signing up with us - not having to try to deal with trying to get one's confirmed opt-in through to AOL users (hoops through which you *shouldn't* have to jump when running a confirmed opt-in list!) seems to be a big deal. :-( Anne
