I can send mail to this customer’s domain from my domain no problem, I just can’t get mail from them. At first glance it seems like a DNS issue, not a filtering issue, but who knows?

Frank? Frank?? Hey, where’d he go?

….as we had very strange problems with Postini when we have send email out through a commercial MTA, switching to an open source MTA, sending the same email (content, subject, from line, from email etc), form the same IP, the email was delivered into Inbox….otherwise the email simply “disappeared”, not even appear in the junk folder.

The Postioni customer had no clue why the email has been blocked…and of course they didn’t know what to change in Postini.

The problem is that “Postini client” has a very broad definition, BY definition. Which one of these Postini “clients” had full control of their filtering options?

- My chiropractor
- My real estate lawyer
- My apartment complex’s leasing agent
- My apartment complex’s maintenance engineer
- My financial advisor
- His assistant
- His analyst

If you said “none”, you are correct. Most of them don’t even know how to contact their own help desk – and, in case you didn’t know, there are levels of Postini scoring below which you will not even appear in the junk folder. You’re simply “disappeared”, except to the system administrator.

If these folks do manage to get hold of their own help desk, all they’ll get told is to whitelist me – which treats the symptom and ignores the problem. I have had my personal e-mail, from a triply-signed mail server over which I have complete control, which has never sent spam, which has never even sent bulk mail of ANY kind,
garner Postini scores as low as 2. TWO. Out of 100.

Is that technically Postini’s problem? No. Is it in Postini’s enlightened economic self-interest to help their clients get the e-mail they want? I should think so, but apparently not. Does that make them irresponsible? I think so.

The real problem is that Postini rates themselves using one and only one metric: Number of e-mails blocked. Not false positives, not delivery rates, not anything else at all. I cannot think of a more perverse incentive than that; if they could block 100% of all inbound mail, their numbers would go up!

I too tried to get a human at Postini. I took three different back-channel routes to get there. They all landed at the same person – apparently the one guy who sends out “we’re not responsible no matter what” form letters to anyone who writes to Postini. He told me, and I can’t make this up:

Postini was scoring my e-mails as “spammy” because Postini had previously scored my e-mails as spammy.

Kafka would be proud.

As for Postini not caring is nonsense, because Postini does not control the filtering, but offers numerous options for the customer of Postini to control their email system. It’s their mail system, not the senders, nor Postini’s.

As for Postini being unresponsive, I find that statement untrue. As a Postini reseller/distributor of 5 plus years, we have had nothing but an exceptional relationship with Postini.

If anyone would like to discuss anything Postini, just ask.