IP: RE: Let you decide where the truth is -- AOL and Harvard

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

> From:
> To: "David Farber" <dave@farber.net>
>
> FOR publication, not FOR attribution.  Thanks.
>
> Dave,
>
> I work for a company that delivers large amounts of e-mail for Fortune-1000
> companies.
>
> We had a very similar problem with AOL: we started to see many of our
> messages fail to arrive in AOL mailboxes even though AOL reported they were
> successfully accepted for delivery.
>
> Sending one or two messages at a time would work flawlessly, but when
> sending anything larger, some might arrive while many would not.
>
> After a lot of testing, we discovered AOL has some very interesting policies
> regarding email delivery.
>
> In a nutshell, if you deliver more than some number messages to AOL within
> an a certain timeframe, AOL will accept them for delivery but in actuality,
> delete them without notice.  The metrics AOL uses to decide what should or
> should not be delivered are not published.
>
> We solved this when, after several months of spotty delivery, we finally got
> to the right person within AOL who informed us they maintain a "white list"
> of companies like ours that are allowed to deliver messages "in bulk" to AOL
> recipients.
>
> Once we found out about its existence, a few emails and a faxed affidavit
> later, we saw all our messages delivered without incident.
>
> I would imagine Harvard fell afoul of these policies.

For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/