Hi All, As some of you know AOL is blocking the mail from Rootsweb to most of us that have AOL as an ISP. I contacted Rootsweb and below is the response I got from them. I would appreciate it if SKS on the list who gets the Rootsweb mail in digest form could forward it to me as I am about to go into withdrawls from not being able to get any mail from Rootsweb. Thanks in advance, Cynthia Walker A response to your Help Desk message, "AOL Blocking mail from Rootsweb," of Thu, 29 Jan 2004, at 7:05 p.m. follows: ------------------------- Hi, AOL started a bulk mail spam filter that is blocking list mail. They have to lift that. Don't know how they can say that is our problem as we can not force them to accept our mail. However, the good news is Drew has been in contact with them and some mail is starting to get through so hopefully things will get back to normal soon. D.

I fought with AOL for years when I was an AOL user, to be able to manage what I considered to be SPAM. Now, years later, instead of allowing user-managed EMail filters, such as Outlook's Rules Wizard, they are taking it upon themselves to define for all of their users what AOL management considers to be SPAM. In the last few months, this arrogant, "Big Brother" approach has blocked millions of legitimate EMails to aol users that subscribe to various business services and lists, such as rootsweb. Yet, they seem unable to block many viruses, incoming or outgoing! The aol user may never know that aol is blocking their EMails, because it never makes it that far. AOL does not advise the user or sender that an EMail has been blocked in this way. AOL will not even provide public information about just what content, scripts, links or other circumstances cause an EMail to be blocked. Each affected legitimate business EMailer has to individually contact AOL and try to find out why their EMails are being blocked. I "canned" my AOL subscription over a year ago, and for $100/yr, bought my own domain with a web hosting service. I get unlimited EMail accounts, 50 MB of web space with FrontPage support instead of AOL's measly allocation, and sophisticated domain and user level EMail filtering rules that I can manage myself. I can establish global SPAM filters and other rules at the domain level, and additional rules for myself and the kids. Also, with aol out of the way, my Norton anti-virus software can effectively identify and block viruses and other security threats that it could not before, and I have been virus free every since. There is a good reason why aol users get and propagate more virus infections. 90% of the virus containing Email messages blocked by my Norton AV in the last few days have had aol sender addresses! Please excuse this off-topic anti-aol "flame", but recent aol actions and related events just got to me, as they apparently have to rootsweb list users! AOL users may want to personally express their own concerns directly to aol in this matter. I voted a long time ago with my wallet! -----Original Message----- From: RENWALK@aol.com [mailto:RENWALK@aol.com] Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 21:40 To: REYNOLDS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [Reynolds] AOL blocking Rootsweb mail Hi All, As some of you know AOL is blocking the mail from Rootsweb to most of us that have AOL as an ISP. I contacted Rootsweb and below is the response I got from them. I would appreciate it if SKS on the list who gets the Rootsweb mail in digest form could forward it to me as I am about to go into withdrawls from not being able to get any mail from Rootsweb. Thanks in advance, Cynthia Walker A response to your Help Desk message, "AOL Blocking mail from Rootsweb," of Thu, 29 Jan 2004, at 7:05 p.m. follows: ------------------------- Hi, AOL started a bulk mail spam filter that is blocking list mail. They have to lift that. Don't know how they can say that is our problem as we can not force them to accept our mail. However, the good news is Drew has been in contact with them and some mail is starting to get through so hopefully things will get back to normal soon. D.

Hi, I had same problem a few months ago with my ISP. It was not AOL but northstate telephone company. They installed spam blockers and it blocked rootsweb. I had to talk to several people at telephone company but finally got to right one, one of the vice presidents. He put me on a 3 way phone call with him and me and the software company that designed spam blocking software. All they had to do was change some of the blocking wording to allow rootsweb through. Have not had any problems since. I realize from past experience that getting AOL to do this will be a lot harder but it can be done. If they won't cooperate you might want to consider switching to another ISP that cares more about its customers. My ISP was not aware this problem existed till I called them, but then they went to work and got it fixed. Good Luck, Bobby Reynolds RENWALK@aol.com wrote: > Hi All, > > As some of you know AOL is blocking the mail from Rootsweb to most of us that > have AOL as an ISP. I contacted Rootsweb and below is the response I got > from them. I would appreciate it if SKS on the list who gets the Rootsweb mail > in digest form could forward it to me as I am about to go into withdrawls from > not being able to get any mail from Rootsweb. > > Thanks in advance, > Cynthia Walker > > A response to your Help Desk message, "AOL Blocking mail from Rootsweb," > of Thu, 29 Jan 2004, at 7:05 p.m. follows: > > ------------------------- > Hi, > > AOL started a bulk mail spam filter that is blocking list mail. They have > to lift that. Don't know how they can say that is our problem as we can > not force them to accept our mail. However, the good news is Drew has been > in contact with them and some mail is starting to get through so hopefully > things will get back to normal soon. > D.