AOL placing embargo -watch out!

Jolly_Roger

If you are sending emails to people on AOL I suggest you be very careful -it will cost you time and money!
Recently, AOL completed a "software upgrade" from what I understand. As a result, emailing someone on the AOL network appears to result in YOU being embargoed. Initially, this lasts for 24 hours on you contacting anybody on AOL and then YOU (yes YOU!!!) are placed on an Internet wide embargo. To unblock this, you (yes YOU the innnocent party!) have to contact your ISP (which in my case means paying a premium rate) to get yourself unblocked. To make matters worse, in attempting to send emails whilst under an embargo, my Norton email and firewall protection software was damaged, resulting in me having to uninstall and then reinstall the software to swtich both back on again!!!! This has cost me an entire morning's work and money due to what? AOL's continuing incompetence.
Now, I was told all this by my ISP, but does anybody know what is really going on? I remember a few years ago watching the head of the Consumer Association's ISP arm telling an AOL director on Working Lunch that AOL software once loaded into a computer cannot then by uninstalled; you essentially have to wipe the whole hard disk; the AOL executive rubbished this, although the same happened to me. Since then, AOL has improved its software, but this recent farce is the final straw. Through no fault of my own, my computer software was damaged. Should I now avoid emailing anybody on AOL?
Was my ISP correct in identifying AOL as the problem?
If there is anybody in the industry out there who knows what is going on, it would be interesting to get an insider viewpoint!

blinky

Mainly sounds like BS to me.

AOL are known for frequently blocking email from domains as spam when it is not and it's not easy to get off the blacklist.

I can't see how or why AOL would damage your Norton Firewall or affect your internet connectivity.

LincsLad_3

Sorry, but I have to agree with the b/s opinion. No word areound the bazaars that I have heard on this - methinks if true it would have hit the IT press so hard it would still be bouncing around.

AOL have in the past blocked email from certain ISPs - sometimes without good reason.

Can't see how sending an email would damage software on your own PC tho. ???

heathen

all i know is in the last week if youve got an aol account all your e-mails are now routed through the usa instead of just going straight through.i know this because ive tried to register with some betting sites that dont allow usa players and have been told im from the usa.on questioning this by e-mail i was told their registration software detects that my e-mail is usa based because thats where its routed through.never had that before.

Pastmaster

AOL embargo!  Is today 1st. April?
Good piece of creative writing though and I bet that some people actually believed it.
Brightened up an otherwise quite dull day! Keep the funny stuff going!

Pastmaster

I pasted the original from JR onto the technical and Tips Board of AOL.
>I found the undernoted post on another site. Has anybody had any problems something similar? (The post was them pasted.)
>
Here's a typical reply -




Where on earth does rubbish like that come from?

Looks like a forum posting to me.  Perhaps the original poster would care to post the replies which will no doubt debunk this codswallop.

I receive a dozen or so e-mails a day from outside AOL and by nature of the contacts I have with the senders, someone would soon have telephoned me if I hadn't responded so I'm certain I receive everything that's sent to me.


Right, let's take this from the top:

>If you are sending emails to people on AOL I suggest you be very careful -it
>will cost you time and money!
>Recently, AOL completed a "software upgrade" from what I understand. As a
>result, emailing someone on the AOL network appears to result in YOU being
>embargoed. Initially, this lasts for 24 hours on you contacting anybody on
>AOL and then YOU (yes YOU!!!) are placed on an Internet wide embargo. To
>unblock this, you (yes YOU the innnocent party!) have to contact your ISP
>(which in my case means paying a premium rate) to get yourself unblocked.

Total and utter rubbish.  I have several friends and relatives who are not on AOL and they e-mail me all the time and have never complained so far of being 'embargoed'.

>To make matters worse, in attempting to send emails whilst under an embargo,
>my Norton email and firewall protection software was damaged, resulting in me
>having to uninstall and then reinstall the software to swtich both back on
>again!!!! This has cost me an entire morning's work and money due to what? AOL's continuing incompetence.

If this is true, it points at a severe problem in Norton, not AOL.

>Now, I was told all this by my ISP, but does anybody know what is really
>going on?

Not me, but if this is what he was told by his ISP, then his ISP doesn't know what is going on either.

>I remember a few years ago watching the head of the Consumer Association's
>ISP arm telling an AOL director on Working Lunch that AOL software once
>loaded into a computer cannot then by uninstalled; you essentially have to
>wipe the whole hard disk; the AOL executive rubbished this, although the same
>happened to me.

No matter what program you're talking about, there is always a way to uninstall it, even if it's having to track down and manually delete every file installed by the program.  With some fairly insidious malware programs and what-not, it may be time consuming and difficult, but it can be done, and certainly AOL 9.0 is fairly easy to uninstall.

>Since then, AOL has improved its software, but this recent farce is the final
>straw. Through no fault of my own, my computer software was damaged. Should I
>now avoid emailing anybody on AOL?
>Was my ISP correct in identifying AOL as the problem?

Short answer - no.  If AOL ever did this rather draconian and stupid practice, you wouldn't be able to move for the number of sites/emails/forum posts/whatever else full of people screaming about it.  I just did a quick search, and I can't see any.