On the tenth day of November 2005, runaway classified advertising success CraigsList began blocking subscription mail to Hotmail, Yahoo and BT Yahoo Internet (formerly known as BTOpenworld).
CraigsList administrators complained that the yahooligans can’t handle incoming mail traffic, deferring messages much of the day. This in turn was causing CraigsList mailservers to back up.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Hotmail was creating similar outcomes, though the causes were different:
After weeks of intermittent delivery troubles with Hotmail, we finally know at least part of the problem. Apparently a handful of Hotmail users have subscribed to high-volume lists then reported the list mail as spam, causing Hotmail to block us as spammers.We’re working toward a commitment from Hotmail to stop blocking us for errant spam reports, so the actions of a few stop messing it up for everyone else.
Hotmail subscriptions are suspended until we have that commitment.
Apparently CraigsList wasn’t blocking everything because, with the November problems still listed as Current Issues, techs reported more intermittent email delays on 8 February, attributing the bulk of them to… you guessed it… Yahoo and Hotmail. Three days later, techs gushed that Yahoo had actually contacted them, confirming that the problems were due to shortfalls in Yahoo’s message delivery capacity.
Finally, on the fifteenth day of February 2006, CraigsList techs declared various mail delivery problems solved. Nevertheless, the Yahoo and Hotmail issues remain near the top of its Current Issues list. Attempts to get clarification from CraigsList staff were met with the same level of cooperation that CraigsList complained about from Hotmail and Yahoo.
A normal Email Service Provider would leap into action when a popular site with 10 million visitors per month starts blocking the ESP subscribers’ messages. But Hotmail and Yahoo aren’t what the rest of us might think of as normal. Their Quality of Service standard appears to be measured in terms of months.
CraigsList offers the most pragmatic, if not easiest solution to this nonsense: “If all else fails, try using a different email account provider.”
Sage advice. Remember that if you ever consider relying on Yahoo, Hotmail or their re-labeled cousins for mission critical message delivery.
Email Battles Backgrounder:
2 comments
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March 1st, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Merlin
Yes, Yes, Yes!! If only there were more organizations, with the kind of numbers/clout Craigslist commands, who would do the same thing. Now, all they have to do is add AOL to their blackhole, and Craigslist will have effectively reduced their inbound email server’s spam processing load by at least 50% (since the bulk of spam email also originates from those three delinquent email giants). It’s a win-win-win for Craigslist.
March 2nd, 2006 at 9:31 am
Dan
it’s amazing to me that such large email hosts (yahoo, hotmail) can provide such poor service.