Many administrators have had to deal with the new policies of AOL http://postmaster-us.info.aol.com/ Many ISP's have implemented gateways that block port 25, and this is understood that it is a easy method to deploy such a gateway. As hosts dealing with many FQDN's is normal. Each have some ISP as their connection provider all ISP's have left a alternate port open to allow their users a method of getting around the port 25 blocks that is understood.

AOL has taken steps which honestly on face value seem just fine. However their new requirements are a major blunder, this much is clear. While SPF and Reverse DNS are great for weighing whether an email is valid or not is great, but setting this as a required only imposes controls which are hard to or nearly impossible to manage. What's next? Charging for not filtering mail?

So what is the real problem? Two parts really, the first is any ISP that imposes such a policy then offers their users no method of directly white-listing a specific sender is madness. Hosts have to buy software that allow their users to directly white-list and black-list senders and recipients why then should a ISP as big as AOL not offered such a simple feature to their users?  We understand that the common complaint from many of our users are we are conducting business and we have to send to AOL users!! We understand your position, perhaps you need to take this up with AOL if you can.

The second part is that many AOL users also own, and host their own domains hosted at any number of hosts world wide. The SPF entry at AOL offers no contingency for the users to add a entry to their SPF that will show or allow such a thing. Understood that this would make the DNS text entry so large it likely would create even more problems.

My question to AOL is how many users do you have to lose before you realize that this policy is beyond any ability for you to even support it? If you had offered your users the ability to white-list you could have avoided this but as it is you created a problem that you have to correct.

As a result many Domain Name owners are creating their own policy. Sorry but we can no longer accept an AOL address as a means of correspondence. At first we thought this was a bit strong, after thinking about it a bit we think it is just what AOL not only deserves. At least until they give their users the ability to white-list it might just be what the doctor ordered.

We have seen many web sites say we are sorry but we do not accept Hotmail or Yahoo addresses. If people so easily can say this for Hotmail or Yahoo then why not AOL? The time has come for everyone to make the statement Ban AOL email addresses. Hit them right where you should in the bottom line.  After all if their users are so uninformed that they do not know they should have the ability to white-list and demand such a thing then we should say ok then get a proper email server that allows this.

Search engines index pages! Our hope is that using the same title Promote AOL email address ban will make many people want to either cut and paste these words in their own page or simply make their own statement. When there are thousands of these pages being indexed daily maybe then AOL will get the hint! Don't be afraid to call them on the phone they offer a toll free number. Over load their lines make them work like dogs. Last the power is in the hands of every AOL user change ISP's you have options exercise them at once.