AOL's Email Nanny

Date: Sunday, March 05, 2006 11:01 AM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

March 05, 2006 No. 1433

I sent out three newsletters lately but if you use AOL, cs.com, or
netscape.net you didn't receive #1432.

My first assumption was that AOL, who also owns cs.com and netscape, put me
on a spam list. Fortunately ZaZona isn't on their spam list but the reason
you didn't receive the newsletter is far scarier.

The complete story is at this link, but the excerpt below gets right to the
point:
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2004/2004-04-19.htm#2

AOL is at it again. This time, it's reading *inside*
its members' emails, and preemptively blocking any
messages that contain links to sites that AOL doesn't
want you to see.

Note: I'm *not* talking about simple mail blocks, where
a mail is discarded if it originates from a "forbidden"
address. No: AOL is parsing the content of its members'
emails and blocking them even if they merely *mention*
a site that AOL disapproves of."

List of recent newsletters:

Mango Diplomacy March 02, 2006 No. 1432
Bush Trades Jobs for Nukes and Mangoes March 02, 2006 No. 1431
Bush in India: No Howdy Out Here February 28, 2006 No. 1430

With the help of several others that have helped research this issue we
discovered that newsletter #1432 contains a link that AOL doesn't want you
to see.

Now why, you may ask, would AOL care what links are embedded in an email
that is sent to you? Keep in mind that AOL is a corporation and all
corporations have agendas. Perhaps AOL didn't want you to see a URL if the
website is a competitor or perhaps it contains a political opinion that
they don't approve of. In essence AOL has decided that it is their right to
become your email nanny.

AOL is blocking many URLs but I have yet to see a list of them. Reports on
the internet are spotty. The link that caused the newsletter to bounce is
below. I inserted [remove] and broke it in two parts so that AOL doesn't
consider it to be a URL, otherwise AOL subscribers wouldn't get this email.
If you want to test this for yourself I will tell you how at the end of
this message.

http[remove]://news.moneycontrol.

[remove]com

AOL's reason for blocking moneycontrol isn't obvious because there is
nothing special about the website. One possibility is that these companies
are into some kind of dispute in India. AOL has outsourced most of their
tech support to India, and while it may be a coincidence, look at the
address of moneycontrol:

Television Eighteen India Ltd,
Empire Complex, Ist Floor,
414, Senapati Bapat Marg,
Lower Parel,
Mumbai - 400 013.

AOL's tampering with emails makes it very difficult for newsletters that
include links because there is no way to tell which link might be the one
to set off their nanny alarm. If this trend continues and other ISPs adopt
this nosey approach to email censorship it could become impracticable to
send mass emails. I suspect that my last problem with AOL was for similar
reasons (see "AOL Blockade Lifted" August 14, 2005 No. 1312 and "Bye Bye,
AOL users" August 12, 2005 No. 1311).

My policy will probably be to ignore AOL bounces if I get them from all AOL
subscribers at one time, unless it happens to several newsletters in a row.
AOL users and everyone else is always welcome to go to the online
newsletter archive if they miss a newsletter, although I am usually behind
in updating it. If was using AOL I would complain about this censorship and
if they didn't fix it I would switch ISPs. If AOL is allowed to continue
with the Big Brother tactics you can bet other ISPs will follow.

Instructions on how to test AOL's nanny meter:

1) Copy and paste this into a new email

http[remove]://news.moneycontrol.

[remove]com

2) Delete the "[remove]" and reconnect the "com" so that it becomes a real
URL address.

3) Send the email to someone you know with an AOL address.

4) Wait a few minutes and see if you receive a bounce message.

5) The bounced email will look something like this:

Could not deliver message to the following recipient(s):

Failed Recipient: email@aol.com
Reason: Remote host said: 554 TRANSACTION FAILED

NOTE FOR AOL USERS: AOL users may not see the problem by sending the email
to themselves, or to another AOL user. That's because AOL treats spam
blocking different on their subnets. It shows up more consistently when
someone outside of AOL emails to someone inside. Apparently AOL allows
their own users to send each other the link. Could it be that AOL's email
nanny thinks it's more important to protect their children (paying
customers) from outside influences?

www.ZaZona.com
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