Yes, I know - that looks very much like one of the silly hoaxes that
travel around the internet. The truth is, this is no hoax. I see it
every day. I've talked to other experiencing the same thing. We are on
the verge of email disappearing as a viable communication method and
it's not because of any new surcharge or governmental regulation - no,
it's because of spam blocking tools.



Do you use spam blockers? If you do, you are part of the problem. Sure,
spam is a pain in the neck. There's an easy answer, though - it's
called a delete button. Another answer is to block senders who
repeatedly spam you. But using spam blocking tools is a bad idea and I
can give you numerous reasons why.



First off, many of the newer spam blockers are extremely aggressive. I
tried to reply to an email the other day and got a "message
undeliverable." It said my IP address was blocked - so I followed their
link and looked it up - my IP address was NOT blocked - but several in
a fifteen digit range around mine were - and it literally stated that
"similar IP addresses" were blocked. So, I was unable to reply to this
email and there was no way around it.



One of my clients needed a number of links the other day - legitimate
venue pages - and I tried to send them. Their email domain blocked the
email because it "contained a blocked URL." These were legitimate URL's
for music venues. The other bad part of this is, in neither of these
instances does the person even know I tried to send the email. Mind you
in that last case I had another email addy to send to that was on a
different email domain and it went through fine.



In many instances if you hit "spam" on an email they block that email
domain from sending email to ANYONE using your email service. AOL and
hotmail in particular are big on block lots and don't worry about the
legitimate mail that doesn't get through approach. So, you might have
all kinds of email that isn't getting through - and you thiink, no one
ever replies to my emails, my bank isn't sending my statements, etc,
etc. They probably are, but some overzealous spam blocker is keeping
you from getting it.



So, the solution is, don't use automated spam blockers. You are not
only stopping spam from getting into your mail box, but you are
probably stopping legitimate mail, too - and you've got no way to check
on it. If you use an email server that you don't have control over -
say hotmail or AOL or yahoo - email them and tell them that you want to
decide for yourself what you want to read and what you don't and that
you don't want them to block any mail for your account. If you know
someone using spam blocking software tell them to stop. It's not that
big of a deal to delete spam. Personally I delete a couple hundred
pieces of spam a day - at least - and it takes probably thirty seconds.
If I get hit from the same person multiple times in a day I block that
sender - or if it's an obvious spam domain the whole domain. But you
need to make these decisions for yourself. If you let a computer
program make them for you, everyone's email is in jeopardy. Please pass
this around.