Increased Volumes Of Spam

[Paul Kelly :: Blacknight]

Matt Kettler wrote:
> Interesting.. a similar, but less specific, statement cropped up on the SBL
> pages too:
>
> http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/howtouse.html
>
>  Use of the SBL is free for individuals operating small mail servers as long as
> your email traffic is low. Commercial users, corporate networks and ISPs need to
> purchase a yearly subscription to use the service: see DataFeed.
>
> Whereas XBL says it's free but high traffic sites should use a datafeed:
>
> http://www.spamhaus.org/xbl/index.lasso
>
> Use of the XBL is free for users with normal mail servers (but networks with
> high email traffic should see DataFeed).
>   

Hmmm. We happen to host public mirrors for spamhaus. It's the cause of 
around 210k queries a minute to our rbl dns mirror box :-), sbl-xbl 
being the biggest trafficker in the spamhaus family so far.

I can understand them putting limits in writing. I've not heard of them 
cutting anyone off. But if one mirror provider was complaining about a 
lot of traffic from ASxxxxx they can easily cite the above statement and 
cut them off. I presume there is a lot of effort put in on their part, 
with the mirror system and distributed dns services, colo/hosting of 
boxes, staff costs etc. As such having larger users pay is probably 
required to keep the service going. The various bl's they have are very 
usefull and spending a few quid on them isn't a bad idea IMO, though 
peoples mileage may vary though.