Hello,

We have found that one of our clients account have several files containing email addresses individuals & business. We came to know this by investigating this suspicious accounts due to 2 problems:

1. MySQL server problem
2. Exim Mail Queue

The Exim mail queue is showing 651 messages & 95% are of this client.

"There are currently 651 messages in the mail queue"

Can you please suggest whether should we terminate this account? Or otherwise, what actions we can take?
Our number one priority is the keep our server in running condition & kill the spam.

Please advice.

Thanks.

Shikha

Playing devil's advocate here...

How do you know these addresses are not legit? Could be subscribed email newsletter members, club roster, or a host of other reasons they have the emails.

Do you have specific lines in your ToS that forbid any kind of spamming?

Are you sure that the addresses contained in the client's databases aren't legit?

If the answer to both is 'Yes', then terminate the account.

If you're unsure about the addresses, then approach the client and ask him to provide proof that the email addresses are, in fact, legitimately collected.

If he's unable to prove the above, then terminate his account. Otherwise, make him throttle down his email/db usage and/or charge him extra (if he has gone over his limits).

I would say suspend the account and investigate further...

I agree with Darths Advice, suspsend if it turns out to be blatant spam, term them based on AUP

We at least one user that has opt-in mailing lists. They send almost a thousand emails every day from the server. Haven't had a single spam complaint, and they really didn't let us know ahead of time. We just found out one day when they misconfigured their script and we got all of their bounced emails.

Unless the list itself looks mighty suspicious. Like contains hundreds of thousands of email addresses, in alphabetical order, or something, then I would assume that they were innocent. Especially if they have a sign-up and opt-out form on their web site.

Playing devil's advocate here...

How do you know these addresses are not legit? Could be subscribed email newsletter members, club roster, or a host of other reasons they have the emails.


The account is just 10 days old. How can a website get 6000 registration in just 10 days without taking few MB of bandwidth?

Do you have specific lines in your ToS that forbid any kind of spamming?

Are you sure that the addresses contained in the client's databases aren't legit?



Yes. We have mentioned this in our TOS & AUP also we have specific UCE / SPAM Policy.

We now, suspended this account.

And contacting the client for further investigation.

Thanks.

Shikha