Hi, Let me add some weight to Barry's conclusions. I have an arrl.net e-mail address and have for many years. It does not appear on any web pages and I seldom use it. I NEVER get spam on that account. My arrl.org address does appear on a few web pages and I do get some spam on that account, but not a lot. I conducted an experiment. I have a web site that my UC Extension students use. And it's provided by a hosting service that gives me about 30 e-mail accounts in the package. So, I setup a fake email account of paul@andyoppel.com (there is no "paul" in my household). Then I added an e-mail link for "Webmaster: paul@andyoppel.com" to the web page. I gabe the address to no one and never used to actually send any e-mail. Yet, within hours, that e-mail address started to get spam. After just two days, I took the link off the page. That was 2 months ago, and I STILL get mail for paul@andyoppel.com (which my spam filter knows to trash). So, the presence of your e-mail address on a web page makes it a primary target for spam. Will we be able to convince our membership of this? Probably not. -- Andy Oppel, N6AJO Shelley, Barry, N1VXY writes:

Rod:

Currently, we have about 62,000 members with arrl.net addresses. And those same people who give out their e-mail addresses probably post them to public web page as well. That's why they get spam to their arrl.net address. I have an arrl.net address as well but have never gotten any spam through it. Of course, you can't find it posted anywhere in public either.

We are going to have to do something about this but it won't come without additional costs. How much that is and if we want to incur the additional expense remains to be seen.

As for your question about backlash, I'm not sure. At the moment, as you might suspect, I've been flooded with responses from members who are also Earthlink customers. With the exception of only a handful, all are complaining to Earthlink and using words like "valuable service", etc. when talking about arrl.net. I think those who have it value the ability to have their callsign attached to ARRL in their e-mail address. I think its more of an identity thing than it is a real benefit, but the perception is generally positive.

Barry

-----Original Message----- From: Stafford, Rodney (Int'l Vice President) Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 2:34 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:9478] Re: Web Story Earthlink

As one of those 2,600 Earthlink subscribers (actually, w6rod@ix.netcom.com which was purchased by Earthlink) I did a little test yesterday about 13:38. You can see I was really, really busy yesterday!

I sent one test message to w6rod@arrl.net and another test message to w6rod@arrl.org.

The ".org" message arrived within a minute. I still haven't seen the ".net" message sent some 34 hours ago.

At this point I wonder if we should just toss the whole "@arrl.net" idea. Anyone have a feeling if this would result in a backlash or not? I hear people giving out email addresses on the air and giving their call sign "@arrl.net" so it is being used by our members, apparently a lot of them. However, I have also heard a number of discussions (and participated in some) by different people complaining about all the spam they get through "@arrl.net."

Personally, I think it is a great idea but it seems to generate about as many bad comments as good ones.

Well just a thought. 73, Rod

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At 10:41 AM 9/24/2003 -0400, you wrote:

The following item will be posted to the ARRL web page today. In addition, I will be sending an e-mail to the 2,600 members who are affected by Earthlink's actions. The most frustrating part of this, with possibly the exception of finding an actual live human being to talk to, is the fact that Earthlink has given at least three different reasons directly to us or one of our members. One of their reasons is an outright lie, one has been resolved and the third is their "too much spam" response.

73, Barry, N1VXY

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Earthlink Still Delaying arrll.net e-mail

Despite several discussions with representatives of Earthlink and changing stories from them on why they have instituted this action, Earthlink continues to delay messages being forwarded from arrl.net to earthlink.net addresses. As a result of Earthlink s actions, ARRL cannot guarantee that messages forwarded from arrl.net to members e-mail addresses at Earthlink will be delivered.

At the root of the issue, is Earthlink s contention that the arrl.net domain is a spam source based on their internal standards and analysis. While they understand the concept of a simple mail forwarding system like arrl.net, and admit that the spam is not originating from it, they maintain their position that blocking all messages, including valid e-mail, from this domain is an effective tactic in their efforts to fight spam on the Internet. Earthlink has told ARRL staff that they will continue to delay messages until the amount of spam being sent through this system is reduced to a level they deem acceptable.

Although we are attempting to contact the appropriate authorities at Earthlink, the situation is currently at an impasse. We understand and appreciate the inconvenience this represents to ARRL members. Other large national ISPs have dealt with this specific issue in a much more reasonable fashion once we were able to contact them and explain the situation. Those ISPs as well as hundreds of other smaller ones are accepting forwarded mail from arrl.net. Earthlink, however, is not.

If you are one of the members affected by Earthlink s actions and have another e-mail account with a different ISP, you can change your e-mail address where your arrl.net is forwarded. This can be done through the Member Data page on the ARRL Members Only Web site. Changes to this information are delivered automatically twice daily so it may take several hours for the change to take effect.

You may also want to contact Earthlink individually if you do not agree with their policies and tactics in this situation. E-mail can be sent to abuse@abuse.earthlink.net < mailto:abuse@abuse.earthlink.net>.

Again, we apologize for the inconvenience and we will continue to try and resolve the situation with Earthlink.