Path: nntp1.ba.best.com!news1.best.com!newsfeed.mathworks.com!EU.net! blackbush.xlink.net!newsfeed.germany.net!unlisys!news.snafu.de! peerfeed.news.psi.net!filter.news.psi.net!reader.dist.news.psi.net! pubxfer1.news.psi.net!not-for-mail From: PSINet Net-Abuse Team X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.email Subject: PSINet's Response to CNET News.com's Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lines: 70 Message-ID: <32fO5.1$G42.60@pubxfer1.news.psi.net> Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 11:20:04 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 136.161.105.26 X-Trace: pubxfer1.news.psi.net 973700351 136.161.105.26 (Wed, 08 Nov 2000 11:19:11 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 11:19:11 EST Xref: nntp1.ba.best.com news.admin.net-abuse.email:50950 PSINet's Response to CNET News.com's Article of November 6, 2000 PSINet believes that each of our customers deserves to be treated in a professional manner, and therefore, we ordinarily do not publish details of our customer relationships, beyond disclosing whether or not the subject of a complaint is (or remains) a PSINet customer. PSINet is obliged to respond to the assertions in last night's article in CNET News.com. The article suggests that our provision of service to an identified customer "bolster[s] critics' claims that some of the world's largest ISPs knowingly do business with spammers" in violation of their own anti-spam policies. These "critics' claims" regarding PSINet are false. First, PSINet no longer provides service to the customer mentioned in the article. Second, the "so-called pink contract" obtained by CNET was handled by a junior lawyer in PSINet's commercial contracts group who was handed a proposed addendum by a commercial marketer setting forth what purported to be stricter rules for compliance with our Net Abuse Policy. PSINet's Net Abuse Policy is not negotiable, and we will not knowingly enter into service agreements that provide a license to commit Policy violations. Since our founding, PSINet has deployed technologies to reduce the amount of spam generated on our network. Our most recent efforts include: · Using filters on port 25 to prevent the end users of our wholesale customers from exploiting open, third-party mail relays to generate mass e-mail. · Deploying a testing tool to assess customers' mail servers for vulnerability to third-party relaying. · Automating closure of all spam tickets relating to the same occurrence - enabling the Net Abuse Team to quickly identify and close abusers' dial-up accounts. PSINet will now take additional steps to reinforce the message internally - within what has become a 9,000-person strong organization - that we do not provide services of any kind to spammers. Specifically: · We will amend our Net Abuse Policy to further reinforce the principle that behaviors that violate Internet norms, including for example faulty "opt-in" schemes, spamvertising Web sites, or providing spam "support services" such as mail drop boxes or sales of spamware, are flatly prohibited on PSINet's network. · We will undertake additional training of our sales force, both during initial orientation and periodically throughout their tenure, to make sure they are sophisticated in recognizing and rejecting requests for contract modifications that might weaken or undercut our Net Abuse Policy. · We will undertake additional training of our Net Abuse Team so that they are better attuned to the ploys used by marketers to try evade the terms of our Net Abuse Policy - and better acquainted with the players in the arena of mail and Usenet abuse. · PSINet will share this information, upfront, with customers and prospective customers, so that there can be no misunderstanding of what is permitted and what is not.