New format for my ezine ... AOL MAKES ME SO MAD!!

Well...I struggled long and hard trying to figure out HOW to get ABC's email version delivered to people, but the damn spam filters have just gotten the best of me. Also, AOL's new policy where they actually read the content of people's mail and delete all mail that contains links to sites THEY deem objectionable is REALLY aggravating. I can't believe AOL members tolerate this obvious censorship. AOL is truly trying to be Big Brother. If you don't subscribe to Langa's wonderful newsletter, or if you are an AOL member and haven't received it becuz of AOL's wonderful policies, here's what Langa had to say:

" AOL Madness (Warn Your Friends)

AOL is at it again. This time, it's reading *inside* its members'
emails, and preemptively blocking any messages that contain links to
sites that AOL doesn't want you to see.

Note: I'm *not* talking about simple mail blocks, where a mail is
discarded if it originates from a "forbidden" address. No: AOL is
parsing the content of its members' emails and blocking them even if
they merely *mention* a site that AOL disapproves of.

This happened to my last newsletter issue, when I mentioned a perfectly
valid and inoffensive link: http://www.codeproject.com/ . It turns out
that last summer, in July, AOL put that site on its naughty list for
some unexplained reason, and ever since has blocked all emails that even
contain a link to that address.

When my list-host ( http://dundee.net ) noticed huge numbers of AOL
emails bouncing back, they preemptively sought to find out why, and the
folks at AOL then removed the block--- on that one address.

AOL's mail system is just this side of insane. Not only does it read
inside member emails for links that AOL doesn't like, but--- as we've
reported before--- if AOL members get a little lazy and block a
newsletter like this one, instead of unsubscribing, AOL keeps track of
the blocks. Last time I looked, if as few as 10 readers took the lazy
way out of stopping a mailing, AOL would assume that the mail in
question was spam. In my case, if just 10 AOL users out of 160,000
readers--- that's 0.00006 of my readers--- took the lazy way off the
list, all AOL subscribers would have their legitimate issues blocked for
some time thereafter.

AOL's user-level mail filters are nearly useless because the master
filters discard emails before they ever make it to the users' mailboxes
and the local filters there. That means AOL members can white-list
senders to their heart's content but it will have no effect at all on
the pre-filtering that's done by AOL before their mail ever gets
delivered. AOL's user-level mail controls are a little like those fake
thermostats you sometimes see in office buildings that are meant to give
occupants the illusion of local control, when in reality, a central
system is making all the real decisions.

Noted tech writer Brian Livingston also has been struggling with this,
as he reported in http://briansbuzz.com/w/040408/ . Just look at the jaw-
dropping failure rates he found:

I've written many times that Internet service providers (ISPs)
are mishandling the growing menace of spam by imposing crude
"junk-mail filters" that delete legitimate messages without
notifying the intended recipients of that fact.

...AOL "bounced" about 88% of the newsletters that had been
sent to subscribers who use aol.com e-mail addresses. The
problem was also severe at subsidiaries owned by AOL,
including cs.com (which bounced 88%) and netscape.net (96%).

...[AOL's] filter simply deletes huge quantities of mail
without ever delivering it...
(click link above for full article)

If you have friends on AOL, you may wish to tell them about this (
http://www.langa.com/sendit.htm ) so they'll know why their email is so
unreliable. Of course, there's no guarantee they'll see your email, just
as there's no guarantee that legitimate subscribers to this newsletter
on AOL will get this issue....

But there's a glimmer of hope: For the first time ever, AOL's membership
has started to shrink significantly. Users are finally realizing they
can get better service at lower costs from other ISPs. Perhaps if enough
members vote with their dollars, AOL will wake up and meaningfully
change its Big Brother-ish ways.
Click to email this item to a friend
http://langa.com/sendit.htm

So, from now on, my ezine will only be available online. I've had it with trying to please every ISP out there. It takes way too much of my time, for something I try to give people for free.

To see the new online format of ABC, you can click here