IntaPeople News
Millions of legitimate e-mails stopped by ISPs - 17/08/2010
ISPs are preventing millions of legitimate e-mails from being delivered as they clamp down on spam, it has been suggested.
Return Path, a provider of e-mail improvement solutions, said that some 15% of commercial permission-based e-mails are being blocked in Europe because ISPs are treating them as spam.
The majority of blocked e-mails are said to originate from social networking sites, with Friend United among the worst for delivery rates. Return Path said that problems arise when users falsely flag e-mails as unsolicited because they no longer want to receive those e-mails.
Talking to leading computer publication PC Pro, senior director Margaret Farmakis said:
“We're not talking about spam. These are emails that people have asked to receive, but that are being treated like spam. It doesn't affect one-to-one emails, but a lot of marketing emails and communications from social networks, for example, are never delivered to the end user.”
Despite a high volume of valid e-mails getting caught in spam traps, the company chose not to criticise ISPs. It explained that around 98% of all e-mail is spam, so service providers can have a difficult time distinguishing which messages are genuine.