Some Questions for the Hostgator crew

[ClarkR]

Hey,

I've heard good things about you guys. I'm seriously considering using your service but, I need a little clarification on something in your TOS.

3.) Zero Tolerance Spam Policy
We take a zero tolerance stance against sending of unsolicited e-mail, bulk emailing, and spam. "Safe lists" and "double opt-in" will be treated as spam. Any user who sends out spam will have their account terminated with or without notice.

Now, I understand that you don't want any spammers using your services. I don't blame you... who does (I can't stand the bums myself). My understanding from the above quote is (please correct me if I'm wrong)

You do not allow people to use opt-in email lists that require "double opt-in" for verification purposes so that the email that we do send them is

1. Not Spam
2. wanted (not unsolicited)

Am I correct?

My understanding of the second part is that... you will shut a site down with or without notice because of the mere accusation of it sending spam.

Is this correct?

Thanks for your assistance

Clark

[esl]

Originally Posted by ClarkR

My understanding of the second part is that... you will shut a site down with or without notice because of the mere accusation of it sending spam.

Is this correct?

I think they would suspend the account and call or email the account owner, not just delete it.

[Serra]

Technically, it isn't sending spam that gets your account suspended. There is a limit on the number of messages you can send per hour as well.


Accounts that get suspended are suspended/terminated because spam reports are generated on them by hosting companies like AOL. Too many reports will get a site shut down fairly quickly and without warning.

Now, I understand that you don't want any spammers using your services. I don't blame you... who does (I can't stand the bums myself). My understanding from the above quote is (please correct me if I'm wrong)

You do not allow people to use opt-in email lists that require "double opt-in" for verification purposes so that the email that we do send them is.

Basically, it doesn't matter what you do. If people are reporting you as a spam source, then you will get tossed. There are several examples on the support forum of users sending emails that they considered not to be spam, like trying to help people find better mortgages or get badly needed v1agra, where they were reported as spammers and had their accounts suspended, dispite the fact that they had opt-in only mailing lists.

My understanding of the second part is that... you will shut a site down with or without notice because of the mere accusation of it sending spam.

Yes, that is correct. If you are accusted of spamming (some small group of people generating a formal report) then yes, you are in danger of being terminated. Normally, it appears, that you are first suspended while they investigate what you are doing. If you are found to be ok, i.e. not spamming, then you are let off with some downtime and a warning. If it happens again, you are terminated.

Keep in mind that in the shared environment, such as the baby account, you are sharing a server with a 1000 other websites. If one site is a spammer, the whole server gets blacklisted. Normally, 999 people are really pissed about that, so they are VERY agressive to prevent blacklistings. As a customer, that makes me get a warm feeling inside, becuase being blacklisted SUCKS!

Yes, that means that you must have some care not to generate spam listings, but lets face it, it is difficult to get enough spam reports on a website to be noticed, if you are not actively emailing lists.

If you are worried that HG will suspend you at the drop of a hat and you never email lists, then don't worry. If you are doing a lot of email marketing, then you might need to worry.

[GatorJay]

And to clarify, this does not mean that all double opti-ins are considered spam, this means that if you are using a double opt-in and get spam reports, then it will still be considered spam.

[Kimbot]

I came to HostGator because my previous host was shared, somebody spammed, the whole damned IP block got blacklisted.

Massive email problems that then wen on for months, I had about 80 sites up there, none of my cleints could send mail properly, they were blocked by many other servers or systems using the SORBS and SpamCops blacklists.

I moved out, came here to HG.

My previous host has now fixed the problem, but they had hundreds of sites messed up for about 3 months before they got a new block of clean IPs assigned to them.

So, I watch my clients, I do my best to ensure there are no spammers and am happy that HG is agressive in this matter.

My clients are warned very clearly (1) what constitutes spam and (2) that I have a total zero tolerance to any spammers on my system.

cPanel and WHM do a nice job of automatically warning me when mail scripts are put on any of my accounts.

[chaloupe]

Originally Posted by Kimbot

cPanel and WHM do a nice job of automatically warning me when mail scripts are put on any of my accounts.

Yes it is a good thing to have an email about new script uploaded by users that could maybe spam.

Best Regards,
Chaloupe

[slapshotw]

Originally Posted by Kimbot

cPanel and WHM do a nice job of automatically warning me when mail scripts are put on any of my accounts.

How do you set that up?

-Matt

[TeeJa]

Originally Posted by Kimbot
cPanel and WHM do a nice job of automatically warning me when mail scripts are put on any of my accounts.

Originally Posted by slapshotw

How do you set that up?

-Matt

Not sure this will do that on a resellers account, (At least I never seen it when I had a resellers account), HG would get that info. But if you have a dedicated server you as root will get that information...

[Serra]

Because it reports a server wide report, it isnt available to resellers.

[kmaw]

Which part of the LogWatch would that be found in? I'd like to keep my eyes open for that.

[quietFinn]

Originally Posted by kmaw

Which part of the LogWatch would that be found in? I'd like to keep my eyes open for that.

It's not in the LohWatch mail, it comes in a separate mail with subject "[newmailcgi] Recently Uploaded CGI scripts that send email on <your.server.here>"