A clue about spam

We occasionally talk to really clueless webhosts and ISP’s, who say spam isn’t spam because it isn’t e-mail.

Duh, wake up!

Anyway, I checked some of my hosts, and found they had fearsome AUP’s. Well, if you’re a spammer that is. They mean business about staying spam free.

Have a look:

Totalchoice hosting

Any account terminated for spam is subject to a $500 administration fee

Doorhost

First violations of this policy will result in an “Administrative Fee” of $250 and your account will be reviewed for possible immediate termination. A second violation will result in an “Administrative Fee” of $500 and immediate termination of your account. Users who violate this policy agree that in addition to these “Administrative” penalties, they will pay “Research Fees” not to exceed $175 per hour that DoorHost.net personnel must spend to investigate the matter.

4 Responses to “A clue about spam”

  1. Brian Says:

    “A cleanup fee of $100.00/hour (minimum 4 hours) may be assessed by DynDNS for violation of these terms. ”

    https://www.dyndns.org/about/legal/aup.html
    About 2/3 through section 12.

  2. Administrator Says:

    Ah, Brian. That’s just brilliant! It’s the first example I’ve seen of linkspamming included in an AUP!!!

    I did a search, and found ChangeIP.com has also included linkspamming in the AUP. Way to go, guys!
    http://www.changeip.com/termsofuse.asp

    Seached for link spamming and AUP, and found this:
    http://www.elirion.net/aup.php

  3. Eric Says:

    Hey guys - this was added recently to our TOS/AUP (doorhost)

    ————–
    “Spamvertised” Domains: DoorHost.net holds a zero tolerence approach to the hosting of spamvertised domains on it’s network. Spamvertised domains are any domain which is advertised by use of SPAM sent though networks outside of DoorHost.net’s control and/or network.
    ————–

    Actually just busted someone for it - and it reminded me of this thread.

    I think the reason most hosts don’t have this included in their TOS is that it doesn’t really affect their network at all. The only exception is if their provider doesn’t allow it either.

  4. Administrator Says:

    The way I see it, there are two main types of spam:
    1)e-mail spam
    2)linkspam

    There are probably a few others. Usenet spam, spim etc. You should define spam a bit more. At least say that you don’t use the word spam to mean e-mail spam alone. But otherwise, nice going, Eric. You’re my hero…

    Maybe we should have a spam unfriendly section for regular webhosts too? A place for webhosts to list themselves if they consider linkspam specifically grounds for termination?

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