I need a "spam-friendly" hosting service...!

Ok, now before your blood starts to boil, I hate spam as much as the next guy... but (yes, there's always a "but") I run a co-branded free email service "@emailaccount.com" using Everyone.net and I now have 13,000+ users.

The problem is that with that many users, there are ALWAYS a few idiots who think: "Aha, I'll use this free email service to pick up replies from this spam I'm sending out."

I'm sure other webmasters with large free email user-bases have had the same experience as me.

Now, the hosting company I'm with is threatening to charge *$150* per reported incident of spam, even though technically the people are spamming via Everyone.net rather than them.

Note that as soon as I get spam notifications, I promptly shut down and delete the user accounts in question - but this is not enough to placate my current host.

So I urgently need a CHEAP, RELIABLE host which is known to understand free email services and the "few rotten apples" problem.

On the server side, I only need to host *one* page and one small tell-a-friend CGI script. The site currently gets about 5,000 visitors a day, and this might double or triple within a few months. Still, bandwidth requirements should be trivial - as I said, it's only *one small page*!

However, because of the Everyone.net setup, I need a host that allows the MX record of the domain to be changed. Thanks!

Obviously since the hosting needs are super-minimal, the cheaper the better (given adequate reliability!)

In short, I need:-

* 2GB of transfer a month
* less than 250KB of storage space
* Ability to change MX/CNAME records
* Some kind of basic stats or log file
* An IP address and support for 1 domain name
* ***ESSENTIAL***: the host must keep the domain live when spam complaints (inevitably) come in (as I explained in much more detail above)

I definitely DON'T NEED
* Telnet, SQL, PHP, SSL, shopping carts, etc... (I'm only hosting one very simple static page!!)
* POP3 or mail forwarding

I might be way off base, but I don't really see how the above can cost more about $5 a month... if only I knew where to find the right host.

While I need an urgent answer, I need a "right" answer even more - so please only reply if you KNOW that the host you are about to recommend truly understands this free email hosting issue and all the problems that can come with it.

Thanks,

Edwin

Hello
Your answer is probably to use a seperate DNS service so you can change host frequently without interrupting the mail delivery.

Your host is being rather unreasonable if the mail is not going through their servers.
By using a seperate DNS service you will prevent them getting some of the complaints.

Gordon

Hi Edwin,

why do you not use MyDomain.com MyDNS-Service * & the Webspace from your Provider (and when you not have such thing then a Free Hoster, here you can find a List: http://hostglobal.com/Free/ ) & WebTrendsLIVE (http://www.webtrendslive.com/ ) then you will have all for Free ;)

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* from MyDomain.com:
For even more power, mydns service allows you all of the mydomain features plus you can set hostnames, MX records, CNames, and SOA records - all free. In addition to providing our services for free, we are ad-free - perhaps that is why mydomain.com is the world's largest web-based domain management service.
---

I hope this helps you a littlebit.

Thanks for the suggestion - that's exactly what I will set up. I have plenty of hosting space - just that my current setup does not allow me to specify MX records - MyDomain.com solves this!

Edwin

Hi Edwin,

Originally posted by Edwin
Thanks for the suggestion - that's exactly what I will set up. I have plenty of hosting space - just that my current setup does not allow me to specify MX records - MyDomain.com solves this!

I'm glad that I can help you !

Have still a nice Sunday :)

When it comes to spam all reason goes out the window. Ask ten webmasters "What is spam?" and odds are you'll get 10 different answers.

Thast certainly true, as earlier discussions on the subject have revealed. Nevertheless, it does seem as if some of Edwin's customers are sending spoam by any definition.

Edwin, you might try becoming familiar with more anti-spam techniques to limit the sending of spam through your service. One method that can help is to limit the number of messages that can go out from a single user at the same time. This can help with the novice spammer,though is ineffective at spammers with advanced skills. They have software that can send out in batches, thus defeating hard limits.

You might also be alerted by any large mailings.

While I appreciate your predicament, you may very well end up at a host that gets blocked through RBL and other services simply because they host your site. A number of sites already block mail from Hotmail and other free services becasue of the volume of spam originating from them. You might find yourself in similar circumstances unless you are oproactive in preventing spam beinf sent through your service.

Duster - I think issue her is someone is sending spam from another service, not the host's own services. But the other service is accessed from the host's web page. IOW, there's a link or form or something on the host's site that accessing a different mail service.

Kinda begs the questions too: What if someone signs up with you then uses Hotmail, Yahoo etc. to spam about their site? Does that still violate TOS? What if they hire a marketing company to email on their behalf? Is that against TOS?

As i read it, it looks like the spam is sent from one account (different doamin).. but the reply addres is the free email account (edwins server)

Originally posted by Jaiem
Kinda begs the questions too: What if someone signs up with you then uses Hotmail, Yahoo etc. to spam about their site? Does that still violate TOS? What if they hire a marketing company to email on their behalf? Is that against TOS?



The answer would of course depend on the TOS in effect for each hosting provider (and their upstream providers) but I would say that most TOS prohibit "spam" which "refers to the hosts network" or to a site hosted on that network.

In other words, and this is specifically mentioned in many TOS, posting advertising messages in newsgroups referring to your web site in violation of that newsgroup's charter can be enough to trigger an adverse reaction from your hosting provider, even though no part of your host's network was actually used in that posting. The same would apply to email.

Fortunately, the TOS of most large providers does not look at spamming in an isolationist perspective. If you have a web site with one provider and use another to spam, referencing the web site, the web site provider will cancel the account since spamming was involved, even if their network was not directly involved.

That's what responsible providers do. They have a zero tolerance for spamming. I've gotten dozens of accounts terminated in this very same situation.