[103878] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Abuse response [Was: RE: Yahoo Mail Update]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Simon Waters)
Wed Apr 16 13:56:07 2008
From: Simon Waters <simonw@zynet.net>
To: nanog@merit.edu
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:33:55 +0100
In-Reply-To: <C42B97EA.16421E%dave.nanog@alfordmedia.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
On Wednesday 16 April 2008 17:47, Dave Pooser wrote:
>
> > It can be useful to explain the abuse desk as being just another form
> > of marketing, another form of reputation management that happens to be
> > specific to Internet companies.
>
> Is it?
.. SNIP good points about abuse desks ..
In the specific case that started this (Yahoo), then I think there is a
marketing issue.
Ask anyone in the business "if I want a free email account who do I use.." and
you'll get the almost universal answer Gmail.
Mostly this is because Hotmail delete email randomly, Yahoo struggle with the
volumes, and everyone forgets AOL do free accounts (although it is painfully
slow and the documentation is incomplete).
But it is in part that Google do actually answer enquiries still, be they
abuse or support. Yahoo occassionally manage an answer, usually not to the
question you asked, or asking for information already supplied. AOL - well
you can get an answer from their employee who watches Spam-L, but directly
not a chance.
So it is a competitive market, and the opinion of those in the know matters (a
little -- we could make more noise!). Although the tough one to compete with
is Hotmail, since their computer offers it to them every time they reinstall,
and those reinstalling more often have least clue, but eventually realise
having their email on THEIR(!) PC is a bad idea.
But yes, abuse desk is only a minor issue in that market, but if you don't
deal with abuse, it will cost the bottom line for email providers. I think
for people mostly providing bandwidth, email is still largely irrelevant,
even at the hugely inflated levels the spammers cause it is still a
minor %age, favicons (missing or otherwise) probably cause nearly as much
traffic.
