CHEETAH COMMUNICATIONS MAIL REFUSAL POLICIES

While we make every attempt not to block legitimate email, this unfortunately does happen on occasion, and sometimes is a necessary action that we are now forced to take in an effort to protect the majority of our subscribers and their children from unwanted pornographic solicitations or unscrupulous email scams and other email frauds. Only by working with the offending ISP will these issues be resolved. We would therefore like to emphasize that if you are unable to send email to one of our customers, you should contact your ISP for assistance in resolving the situation. In the event your ISP's is unable to assist you, then you may also want to try an alternative method of communications (such as phone, postal mail or another reputable ISP) to contact our customer for assistance or instructions on how to go about getting your email delivered to our subscriber.

How And Why Your Email Was Refused:

We're sorry for the inconvenience. . . However, if your email was un-deliverable then you probably sent that email from a server that 

(1) Has been identified as an " Open Mail Relay" or

(2) Has been continually sending exorbitant amounts of Unsolicited Commercial Email (A.K.A. spam) to our users, or

(3) Has been continually sending exorbitant amounts of bounced email (Backscatter) to our servers, or

(4) Has a dynamic IP Address and/or is not a designated email server for the domain name of the email address you are using, or

(5) Forward or reverse DNS does not resolve to the IP address of the email server you are using, or

(6) The  email server you are sending from is "black listed" in one of the various online data bases of known spam origins.

In addition, Cheetah Communications will also refuse email from servers known to engage in the following activity:

(A) Subscription Abuse - More Commonly Known As 'Mailing List Forgery'.
This type of email abuse often occurs with so-called "single opt-in", or "out-out" mailing lists. When discovered or called to our attention, IP blocks or domains engaged in subscription abuse will be blocked from sending email to our servers.

The problem with these types of mailing lists is that a malicious user anywhere on the Internet can subscribe anyone (without their knowledge or permission) to hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of these types e-mail lists. As a result the "victim" is now expected to spend his/her time trying to unsubscribe from all these mailing list(s) that he/she never signed up for, which can be and often is a very tedious and time consuming process.

(B) The Operation of Open SMTP, Proxy, or Formmail Servers, or Email Originating From A Known Spam Source.
The problem with open SMTP, Proxy, or Formmail servers is that they are easily exploitable. Therefore many unscrupulous spammers use and abuse these types of servers to send out massive amounts of junk mail while attempting to conceal their identity.

(C) RFC 2821 Violation
In accordance with RFC-2821 this message indicates an Unresolvable IP Address, and/or a Lacking or Incorrect DNS problem with the server you are using to send out email. If your email is being refused with the message 'RFC 2821 Violation'. . . you need to contact your ISP, and instruct them that both Forward and Reverse DNS is now REQUIRED to send email to our servers. If you are an ISP, or the administrator of an email server please ensure that proper forward and reverse DNS exist for the IP address of your email server(s). Once proper forward and reverse DNS exist, email from your server should no longer be refused for this reason.

(D) Repeated Bad Return Address or Forgery
If we repeatedly receive a bad return address or email forgeries originating from your ISP's email server we will refuse to accept any further email from that server.

Our philosophy is that no internet subscriber should be forced to "unsubscribe" from a mailing list that they did not subscribe to in the first place, nor should our users have to remain defenseless when it comes to receiving unwanted email from known spam sites or exploits. We believe the responsibility rest squarely with the list owner, or advertiser to seek the permission of adding new subscribers to their mailing list before mailing commences. This is usually accomplished by means of an email message sent to the subscriber to which he/she must either reply to, or go to a URL which he/she must visit, in order to consent to the subscription. Therefore, if an organization does not utilize these confirmation methods to ensure that malicious, forged, or otherwise fraudulent and unintended subscriptions do not occur, then by default Cheetah Communications will not accept mail from that source once we are made known of it.

A Note To Affected ISP's And Other Network Providers: All blocked email refused by Cheetah Communications includes an error message clearly indicating either which data base blocked the email, or the reason why the email was refused.  

If You Are Not A Spammer. . . And you are unable to send legitimate email to one of our customers, please contact us at: https://www.cheetah.net/cgi-bin/email and we will try to assist you, or provide you with an an explanation as to why your email is being refused.

Please Note. . . When reporting a problem please include the minimum specific information:
      (1) Email address your email was sent from.
      (2) Email address your email was sent to.
In addition, the date and time (including time zone) you sent your email, and the error message would also be helpful in tracking down the exact cause of the problem you are reporting.

If You Are A Spammer. . . looking for an Internet Provider, please look somewhere else, you won't last long here!

And For All You Spammers. . .who love to harvest email addresses:  listme@listme.dsbl.org and spam@uce.gov :-)