Using Comcast with Chosen Web Host

Chosen Web Host Comcast Policy:

Email from Chosen Web Host servers will no longer be forwarded off-network to comcast.net email addresses.   This change came about because of additions by Comcast to their spam policy.

As of January 1, 2008 no email from a Chosen Web Host hosted domain will be allowed to forward to a comcast.net address.

Historically, Comcast has been noted for excessive blocking with little means of dealing with the problems. They will block mail servers which were not the producers of the spam, but rather a relay. If you have a domain (domain.com) which forwards email to your comcast.net account, email sent that is marked as spam through our machines will actually flag Chosen Web Host as spammers. This means our customers cannot send email to comcast.net customers. What happens then was our customers had blacklisted themselves (and us) by trying to receive mail at their comcast.net email addresses.

In the past, Comcast has provided a blacklist removal process which was fairly efficient, and allowed these arbitrary blocks to be removed. They have never been able to provide examples of spam which we can use to track down specific problems. In comparison, we work closely with other major ISP's, who provide specific spam reports that allow us to target exceptions such as an exploited customer's script, or a spammer who has set up shop previously undetected.

Recently, Comcast has disabled the ability to remove ourselves from their blacklist, and provided no other solution. This new policy has unfortunately forced us to disable any sort of forwarding to their systems in order to eventually lift these blocks.

We are not the only ones who have had issues with this in the past. For more information on past and current behavior by Comcast, please review the following information resources:

Comcast Blacklist - a site set up to inform the public of Comcast's arbitrary blocking policies:

Consumer Affairs - a search for Comcast at this site will reveal a number of scenarios in which Comcast customers have had their services reduced due to similar issues.

We appreciate that this is not the best solution for our customers, and are sorry that there appears to be no other way around this. We believed that given past changes at Comcast they would be more flexible in regards to providing information and relief from blacklists, but it appears they have instead taken a heavy handed approach to the problem.

Spam is an issue that affects all internet users, and is the #1 use of our resources, both manpower wise and hardware. Chosen Web Host does not tolerate spam and works closely with other major providers to stop the flow of spam both in and out of our network.

We strongly urge Comcast customers to voice their concerns to Comcast. Customers who wish to continue using Chosen Web Host for their email service should create mailboxes on our machines (instead of forwarding them) and set up a local client (such as Outlook/Thunderbird) to retrieve email from our machines.