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Holomaxx suing Microsoft, Others


From TechEye.net: [Email sender Holomaxx is alleging that] “Microsoft knowingly relies on faulty automated filters and equally faulty third party information to identify purported spam emails,” said the suit. “Even after Holomaxx informed Microsoft that it was not sending spam – and then took the initiative to review all of of Microsoft’s technical standards and suggested ‘best practices’, and then changed its mailing practices to address the only potential issue that it found there, Microsoft informed Holomaxx that due to its ‘negative reputation’, Microsoft is not able to override its own automatic spam filters.”

Who the heck is Holomaxx? If they're so "esteemed" and have "an excellent reputation," how come I don't know anybody who has heard of them? Pardon my hubris, but I have been in the email industry for a good ten plus years and you'd think me or a colleague would have stumbled across them by now.

Interestingly, they state their IP address ranges: 209.124.78.41 to 209.124.78.60. Anybody see any spamtrap or other email activity from those IP addresses?

And isn't this suit a non-starter? Doesn't CDA Section 230 already nullify Holomaxx's claims here?

The article mentions only Microsoft, but I am led to believe that others (such as Yahoo and Return Path) are in the cross-hairs, as well. I'm sure there will be lots more to come on this topic in the very near future, so stay tuned!

More on this from Ken Magill over at his site.

7 Comments

Comments policy: Al is always right. Kidding, mostly. Be polite, please and thank you.

  1. From what I could see, 209.124.88.200 - 209.124.88.209 is their new range (Afaik 209.124.78.41 - 209.124.78.60 is their old range), Seems (from their complaint) that they got the entire /24 to avoid blocking issues.

    Renumbering to evade a block _usually_ spells trouble in and of itself, no?

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  2. "Has a netblock" doesn't quite meat the necessary standard for "assumption of bad acts" in my opinion. So I don't think that's quite enough to hang somebody on.

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  3. No, having a netblock isn't a bad thing at all per se.

    Getting one as a way of getting around an existing blocking problem is a good way to make the problem worse though, even if one is not up to something nefarious.

    I'm unconvinced about a lot of aspects of this situation, namely about what actually did or didn't happen - some of their claims sound quite plausible, some don't, and I get the gut feeling that there's a lot more too this than it seems - but then again I'm observing from the sidelines at best.

    The one aspect of Holomaxx's position with which I do most strongly disagree however is the assumption that anyone is required to deliver *anyone* elses mail.

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  4. Yeah, I don't disagree with you....we're mostly on the same page here.

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. Personally I just hope Holomaxx stays afloat long enough long enough to lose and then be forced to reimburse Microsoft, Yahoo, ReturnPath, and Cisco for their legal expenses.

    FWIW I'm not exactly a fan of any of the above, but *noone* deserves to be sued for rejecting, or sorting, or just plain taking their jolly good time delivering, mail.

    And to answer your question Al about seeing activity: I grep'd through about 10 gb of spamtrap catch, nothing from holomaxx, nothing from their entire upstream. (No signs of anything good or bad in mailboxes either though, just nothing.)

    For a company so worried about its reputation, Holomaxx sure is making one heck of a nasty first impression.

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  7. Steve White: Sorry, I think you're a troll...you seem to be somebody who just showed up out of nowhere posting "ha ha"s over on Laura's blog. I think I'm going to have to decline to post your comments until I get some idea of who you are and that you actually have something to contribute.

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