Inside Source: “Verizon is Blocking Inbound Email from non-U.S. Sites” 12/31/2004 - 3,152 views, 23 Comments
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Yesterday I reported that there were rumours swirling that Verizon was blocking most, if not all, inbound email originating from domains outside the United States. That’s right. The word on the street was that Verizon for some reason known only to them had decided to block all (or at least nearly all) email which was not sent from inside of the good old USA. Well, according to an inside source, it’s true. A little birdie with insider knowledge has confirmed that Verizon is blocking all international IP space from RIPE, APNIC, and more, and is only unblocking specific domains, based on their IP address, when complaints are made and escalated. According to the source “the security team management thinks this is going to stop their inbound spam problems.” Well, it may stop their inbound spam problem, but it’s also going to stop that pesky “wanted email making it to their customers” problem. Verizon customers who take issue with this new policy should, according to the source, call Verizon corporate offices (located at 1095 Avenue of the Americas, New York City) and “lodge a complaint in Executive Escalations about this hair-brained idea.” The source also suggests that Verizon executive management need to re-evaluate their management and team procedures. Not a bad idea, it would seem. What about those in countries affected by the recent earthquake and tsunamis, trying to reach their loved ones or aid organizations back in the U.S.? What about our troops who are stationed overseas? Do we have any Verizon customers reading this? How do you feel about this turn of events? Are you able to get email from outside the United States?
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Inside Source Says “Verizon is Blocking Inbound Email from non-U.S. Sites”
Dear Gentle Readers, Yesterday Aunty reported that there were rumours swirling that Verizon was blocking most, if not all, inbound email originating from domains outside the United States. That’s right. The word on the street was that Verizon for some…
Trackback by Lockergnome's Windows Fanatics — 12/31/2004 @ 12:55 pm
No wonder I never received e-mail from new found relatives in Europe. They had sent Xmas cards with their e-mail on them. Verizon doesn’t have any right to resrict my mail!!! That’s tatermont to the mailman deciding which piece of mail you’ll get and which he’ll throw away.
Comment by Patrick — 1/1/2005 @ 4:51 am
Ah! That explains it. An Orthodox Christian family asked for my help concerning their forthcoming placement in the UK. I replied. They didn’t get my mail. I sent it to their priest in the US instead and he forwarded it to them. They still didn’t get it. He had to print it out and hand it over personally. What nonsense is this?
Comment by Fr. Gregory Hallam — 1/1/2005 @ 6:45 am
This enlightened little policy would cost my company about $30,000 in sales per month. Best not to use Verizon if you intend on doing international business.
Comment by Sean — 1/1/2005 @ 8:13 am
Just the day after I found this article:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117336,00.asp
…
Comment by djn — 1/1/2005 @ 8:41 am
This is funny. Everyone knows or should know a great percentage of the worlds spam originates from the USA and South Korea is a close second. So it may reduce the spam coming in, but not stop it, by any means. Another example of someone behind a corporate desk with his head up his ass, who thinks because he has read this weeks news about spam, he knows best. Why don’t big companies do something pro-active? Like lobby Washington to come up with a law that works, instead of crap like CAN-SPAM. Gotta go, got another email from Virginia, Vioxx is on sale again.
Comment by Tim in Canada — 1/1/2005 @ 9:24 am
I am not a Verizon user but feel that is IP “filtering” thing is getting a wee bit out of hand. Did you know that access to George W. Bush’s website was barred to French IP’s (and maybe other countries) for the last few days of the presidential campaign? Anyone trying to visit the website from France got an “Error 303″ (not authorised) message. You may or may not like the French but that was a pretty un-democratic thing to do, in my opinion.
New Year to you all.
Comment by Susan Koechlin — 1/1/2005 @ 10:19 am
We keep figuring ways to help the terrorists. This is exactly what they want for us to build wall and become suspicious of anyone that does not look or talk like we do. Divide and Conqur and we keep helping them.
Comment by John Lucas — 1/1/2005 @ 11:01 am
Apparently they are not filtering all of the overseas traffic. I just received several e-mail messages from a friend in Shanghai, China, (one had attachments, too) and she received mine as well.
Verizon allows their subscibers to disable their spam filter as well as to view the messages that it has rejected for the previous seven days, so this should be easy to check and to defeat, if you are willing to tolerate the spam.
Are you sure that you are not the victim of yet another Internet hoax?
Comment by Henry in Virginia — 1/1/2005 @ 12:25 pm
Susan: They blocked British IP addresses as well, if I recall. Yet, oddly enough, they let Canada through…
Comment by codeman38 — 1/1/2005 @ 3:19 pm
Personally I think it’s a necessary evil for those overseas ISP’s that allow spammers free rein to their systems. Most of them know that they are spammers, but as long as they are making the bucks by renting a T1 or T2 line, they could care less. It’s more money in their pockets. You’ll notice the article stated that they would be allowing some overseas sites access. What this breaks down as is that the overseas ISP’s that don’t allow free reign of spammers will be allowed. If the ISP’s allow spammers, then they will be blackballed. I think this is a great idea and should have been done a long time ago by all ISP’s.
I’m sure there is a way for an ISP user to configure their email to allow certain overseas email through Verizons email configuration. Yahoo blocks all overseas email and allows you to configure your email for your friends to get through to you.
Now if the ISP’s will start blackballing the U.S. ISP’s that allow spammers to operate we’ll be putting a stop to this spamming crap once and for all……
Comment by Tinman — 1/1/2005 @ 5:37 pm
I am a verizon customer and what they are saying is true.I cannot recieve mail from four of my reletives that are at this moment defending our country and putting their lives on the line.Any communication from them may very well be the last I ever hear from them.Who the hell does verizon think it is restricting something that I am paying for????????????? I have written them expressing my complaint and am waitting for an answer although I don’t believe any answer that they give me will be satisfactory.If it isn’t,good-bye verizon.
Comment by Leonard Mc Gowan — 1/1/2005 @ 5:38 pm
Our law firm has been unable to receive incoming international e-mails since the beginning of December. Initially Verizon denied any problems but I eventually learned from management that Verizon has blacklisted all incoming international e-mails that use open relay servers which is actually most e-mails being sent from overseas. They assured me that the problem would be resolved which was untrue as I later learned.
Comment by michael kleeman — 1/2/2005 @ 8:37 am
If we are paying for access we have the right to get our e-mail matter were it comes from.
Comment by Frank Leitao — 1/4/2005 @ 9:09 pm
It is true - Verizon is blocking - even international businesses with .com names.
I notified FCC - they want complaints - got to their site at http://www.fxx.gov/cgb/complaints.html and then go to LINK 475 to download the complaint form
Serious business this is. I am dropping Verizon completely - email, home and business phones and selling the stock and putting them on the no-buy list. Here’s an email for people at Verizon to complain to thomas.a.bartlett@verizon.com kevin.r.tarrant@verizon.com. Recommend complaining because otherwise nothing will be done. When I complained they wanted my domains overseas and emails. How am I supposed to know this from friends in SE ASIA who are trying to contact me - yes, Malaysia and Indonesia - nothing’s coming in. Can you imagine what the people are going through over there and any relative or friend with a verizon email address gets bounced back??? Just after they waited days to get to a plug and phone line?
Is this legal? The emails never reach the spam box so there is no way to say it is not spam — it is bounced back to the sender. There is no way to know who has tried to reach you unless they use a phone - hopefully not a verizon one.
Comment by Pauline Augustine — 1/5/2005 @ 10:13 am
I just came out of Iraq. I am in Qatar waiting transportation. No phones are available so I finally found internet. No access to my verizon account. No way to let my wife know I made it out and will be hoime soon. Thanks verizon !!!!!
Comment by William Anderson — 1/28/2005 @ 5:17 am
Just adding my own comment here. The block has been going on for a LONG TIME before 12/04. I remember back in August 2004, creating an account on web forums of international sites to talk to people, and never receiving my registration confirmation email. I would then switch to a free email account, and would receive the email that would never show up on verizon.
I have long since realized that you can not use verizon email. I still use the verizon service for my DSL connection, but you have to use a third-party email service when using this company if you want to receive all your email.
Comment by Robert T — 2/8/2005 @ 12:32 pm
E-mail is STILL being blocked. Cannot receive e-mail from relatives in Poland. Recently signed up with Verizon, was never told about this insanity, finally found out today on the Internet.
Comment by Y — 4/7/2005 @ 5:40 pm
I spent two months online and over the phone with Verizon tech support, trying to ‘unlock’ e-mail for my sister in Asia, my friend in the UK, the state government here in the US for which I worked (yes, seriously), and a few more. I was given the run-around, promised resolutions, offered options like paying more for a ‘dummy IP’, and told to wait for 72 hours while they checked. . .three times. My complaint file was closed twice and I had to start all over again, and I esculated the issue three times to level 3. They had me remove all of my server-level spam protection (which ironically then flooded me with spam) and ‘whitelisted’ my desired e-mail/domains. Nothing worked.
Their final word was that it was the DNS settings for the other ISP’s. Having contacted the admins for the ISP’s (one of whom I know personally), I knew Verizon was lying. I have gone the third-party e-mail route for now, but will probably just unplug from all my Verizon products.
Comment by D — 5/8/2005 @ 4:43 pm
We entertained a member of the South African Embassy this past weekend (in Toronto Canada) and I tried sending him some pictures that were taken at the barbeque. The message was bounced back to me with the following error message: “Connected to (IP number) but sender was rejected. Remote host said: 550 Email from your Email Service Provider is currently blocked by Verizon Online’s anti-spam system.”
What a load of horse manure! This is paranoia in it’s worst form. It is censorship of the ugliest kind. And it’s 2006?
ColinD
Comment by ColinD — 4/24/2006 @ 6:17 pm
Isn’t this a felony? Taking money under false pretenses is fraud in my state. Isn’t it time some Verizon decision maker went to prison?
Comment by gordonclason — 1/8/2007 @ 4:36 am
Verizon has blocked the server where I receive my work email from. Also a bunch of other sites ….
I will not be a verizon customer for much longer… these sort of problems are stupid
Comment by MaizuggaH — 1/15/2007 @ 8:12 pm
Oh, how I wish my ESP would give me the option of blocking email originating outside the US. I’d be willing to pay for the service!
Comment by mel — 9/23/2007 @ 9:45 pm