CDR: Re: FW: BLOCK: AT&T signs bulk hosting contract with spammers

[Bill Stewart]

At 07:40 AM 11/1/00 -0800, James Wilson wrote:
>If any of you get services from AT&T you might want to start looking for a
>more ethical carrier (if one exists) - AT&T has been caught red handed
>hosting spammers and promising not to terminate their services.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Spam Prevention Discussion List
>[mailto:SPAM-L at PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM]On Behalf Of Steve Linford
>A copy of this fax is now at http://spamhaus.org/rokso/nevadahosting.jpg

Fortunately, somebody got this to the right people at AT&T;
otherwise I was going to have to contact the Sales VP (Hovancak)
whose name was on the contract and ask him to find the sales rep
who got fast-talked into signing that contract.  
AT&T's privacy policies mean that we can't reveal information on 
our customers' networks, so it's the PR folks' problem
to tell you that we've learned the error of our ways,
as revealed in the CNET article below.

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3369773.html

AT&T admits spam offense after contract exposed 
By Paul Festa
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
November 3, 2000, 9:30 a.m. PT 

update - AT&T acknowledged Thursday that it had violated its 
own spam policy by providing Web-hosting services to a
purported sender of unsolicited commercial email.

The admission came after an English anti-spam organization
publicly posted what it termed a "pink contract" between
AT&T and the alleged spammer, Nevada Hosting.
AT&T had been hosting the group's Web site. 

"This proves that AT&T knowingly does business with spammers and
shows that AT&T makes 'pink' contracts with known spammers to not
terminate the spammers' services," Steve Linford of The Spamhaus
Project wrote in an email interview. 

AT&T confirmed Thursday the authenticity of the contract and
said it had been discontinued. 

"That document represents an unauthorized revision to AT&T's standard 
contract and is in direct conflict with AT&T's anti-spamming policies,"
wrote AT&T representative Bill Hoffman. "The agreement has been
terminated, and the customer has been disconnected." 

AT&T's spam policy specifically rules out contracts like the
one it signed with Nevada Hosting. 

Nevada Hosting could not be reached for comment. 

Anti-spam groups have long suspected the existence of pink
contracts that allow spammers to promote their Web sites
provided they send their unsolicited emails through other
Internet service providers, according to Linford. The AT&T
contact confirmed those suspicions. 

The Spamhaus Project's success comes as anti-spam groups
increasingly bypass spammers themselves and instead target
those who facilitate the dissemination of unsolicited commercial email.
Those groups--mostly ISPs and server administrators--are
relatively few and are easier to hold accountable than spammers. 

Another such pressure group is the Mail Abuse Prevention System
(MAPS), which maintains the Realtime Blackhole List (RBL).
The MAPS RBL blacklists servers left open to abuse by spammers.
While the group's stated goal is to pressure server administrators
to close avenues for spammers, the MAPS RBL has weathered criticism
that it has limited effectiveness in actually blocking spam. 

The Spamhaus Project, based in London, positions itself as kind of
spam Purgatory on the way to the MAPS RBL. Spamhaus targets entities
that send spam with forged addresses and the ISPs that do business with them. 

"When it finds a 'stealth' spamming service, or an outfit
selling stealth spamware, The Spamhaus Project sends a notice
to the ISP and requests the service or site be terminated,"
Linford wrote. "Ninety-five percent of spam sites are terminated
this way, and those that aren't are then escalated to the MAPS RBL team. 

"MAPS are very much our heroes." 

AT&T representatives have taken to Internet discussion forums
in an attempt to placate spam foes and reassure them that the
company's stated anti-spam policy will be enforced in future contracts. 

"Our sales agents have been instructed as to the correct procedure
to follow and have been reminded of our existing anti-spamming policies,"
AT&T customer care manager Ed Kelley wrote in a posting to the
"news.admin.net-abuse.email" newsgroup. "AT&T is making every
effort to ensure that this does not occur again in the future." 

				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart at pobox.com
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