Sorbs assists Big Business

[rogergemm]

We are a small company competing against two of the biggest corporations on the internet, Amazon and Ebay. We try to send newsletters to our registered users, our customers and our sellers, and then we always get blacklisted by Sorbs despite following all required and generally accepted protocols and standards.
Whether they intend to be doing so or not, I can not say, Sorbs is assisting the big corporations stifle competition. Does Amazon and Ebay get blacklisted when they send out newsletters to their users?
If there is anyone else out there in the same situation we find ourselves in, or if you have been in this situation... [email address removed]...to inform me of whatever you have done successfully or to join together to seek some sort of legal remedy.
Also, I would be interested in receiving contact from any journalists who would find this worth shedding light on. I believe Google/Bing search results are also designed, possibly purposefully, to favor big corporations over struggling competitors. Let's join together and do something about it. -Roger Raffee

PS: I placed a post identical to the one above on another high volume traffic forum, notice I didn't mention the name of our web site, but I got the following message from the forum moderator.

From: [removed]
Sent: Saturday, July 13, 2013 9:49 PM
To: Roger
Subject: Post disapproved - "Sorbs assists Big Business"

Hello rogergemm,

You are receiving this notification because your post "Sorbs assists Big
Business" at "[removed]" was disapproved by a moderator or
administrator.

The following reason was given for the disapproval:

The reported message has the only purpose to advertise for a website or
another product.


--
Thanks, [removed]

[Harold Mansfield]

Probably because on it's face value your post is a solicitation for people to contact you. No matter the reason, most forums don't allow that because it opens the flood gates.
Nothing wrong with telling your story, asking advice or setting up a signature. But when you join a forum brand new and immediately start making posts that solicit it's members to contact you outside of the forum, it's spamming.

No difference here, but I'll leave your post up for discussion, removing the solicitation, email addresses, and complaining about another forum parts.


Now. Who the heck is Sorbs and what do they have to do with your newsletter program?

[MyITGuy]

Now. Who the heck is Sorbs and what do they have to do with your newsletter program?

Its a blacklist provider used by e-mail providers.

If the OP is getting listed, then its likely the people who he is mailing are flagging his messages as spam, or is sending to e-mail addresses associated with honeypots (I.E. Email addresses are randomly generated for this purpose to catch spammers who are trying every known/random combination of addresses on a specific domain).

I would recommend that the OP use a known mailing service such as mail chimp or an alternative, along with following the guidelines of the CAN-SPAM act and only mailing customers who have requested to be mailed.

In the end, big corporations have no effect on your business getting listed on a third party blacklist provider, and I doubt your going to find anyone who is interested in your 'cause'.

[Harold Mansfield]

If that is the case, then it sounds like you've been buying or acquiring lists instead of generating them yourself.
Is everyone on your list opt in and did you opt them in yourself?

I'm pretty sure it's not a conspiracy. Sounds like there's some missteps somewhere that keep getting you flagged.
Plenty of people do mailing lists and newsletters everyday with no problem, and have much bigger lists than yours, and Ebay and Amazon aren't trying to block them.

However, when I get one that is unsolicited it steams me because I know that they trolled my email address from somewhere and just decided to put me on a list. Most times it goes unnoticed and my spam filter separates them. But there are times when I cherry pick one that I see all of the time, and attempt to make their life hell and report them to everyone and their Mother.

[billbenson]

How do you report an email to black list company?

[MyITGuy]

How do you report an email to black list company?

Most blacklist providers will have a contact form that you can manually submit to if needed.

However, there are a few automated ways to get on a blacklist that I am aware of:
First - Company A is running a mail server/security suite on their own network. If the security suite sees a high volume of mail coming from an IP Address intended for recipients that don't exist (Directory Harvesting), then this IP gets flagged as SPAM and they will automatically submit it to any blacklist providers they have a partnership with.

Second - Taking the same setup as above, if the security suite sees a high volume of mail coming from an IP Address that contain links to websites that are known for spam/phishing or etc, then this IP gets flagged as SPAM and they will automatically submit it to any blacklist providers they have a partnership with.

Third - The most common method I am aware of is what is referred to as honey pots. Essentially there are services out there that will intentionally spread links (invisible) and/or e-mail addresses that are absolutely not used for any purpose other than tracking spam. If a message is received on one of these e-mails/honeypots, then the sender IP will be flagged as spam and placed on the appropriate blacklists (Based on the providers scoring mechanism).

Here is a quick summary from a WordPress plugin:

This plugin automatically scatters invisible links to Project Honey Pot spam traps throughout your wordpress blog to help catch and stop spammers.

Project Honey Pot is the first and only distributed system for identifying spammers and the spambots they use to scrape addresses from your website. Using the Project Honey Pot system you can install addresses that are custom-tagged to the time and IP address of a visitor to your site. If one of these addresses begins receiving email Project Honey Pot not only can tell that the messages are spam, but also the exact moment when the address was harvested and the IP address that gathered it.

Install this plugin to help contribute to the project and catch spammers by hiding links to honey pots (spam traps) in your blog. The links are never visible to human visitors, but the spambots and crawlers follow them straight into the traps.

Note: this plugin will not directly prevent spam on your site, but will help prevent spam for everyone by helping to catch the spammers.

[billbenson]

That wordpress plugin is interesting. I've been blacklisted before, but it was because I was on a shared server. The whole server got blacklisted. The server got hacked years ago because one of the shared users had a weak password. Every index page on the server had a Saddam Hussein propaganda page.