HOWTO - Remove blocked AOL recipients

This document details the procedure for getting the block removed on blocked AOL recipients.


Here is some background on the issue:

As part of our agreement with AOL, your e-mails to some AOL recipients are being blocked at the ETRN.com servers. Like most E-Mail Service Providers, in order to be able to send e-mail to AOL we must subscribe to the AOL Feedback Loop and take action against reported spammers that use our servers.  If we didn't do this, AOL would not accept any e-mail from our servers.


Here is the procedure for getting the block removed from an AOL recipient(s):

For verification purposes, the e-mail(s) from the AOL recipients must come from the AOL servers.

  1. The AOL recipients involved must contact us (at postmaster@ETRN.com) and tell us one of following:
    1. I made a mistake and reported e-mail from domain.tld (they must specify the actual domain) as SPAM. I really want their e-mails and I won't report them as SPAM again.
    2. I have not reported e-mail from domain.tld (they must specify the actual domain) as SPAM. Please do not block their e-mail to me. I really want their e-mails and I won't report them as SPAM.
    3. I reported the e-mail from domain.tld (they must specify the actual domain) as SPAM because I do not want their e-mails.
  2. Based on their responses, we will likely take one of the following actions:
    1. Remove the block on entire group of addresses that were blocked because of the complaint.
    2. Remove the block on a single e-mail address.
    3. Remove the block on all but one e-mail address that were blocked because of the complaint.

We Answer Your Questions: FAQ

Q: What is the maximum e-mail attachment size?

A: The ETRN.com e-mail servers do not limit the size of individual e-mail attachments. The ETRN.com e-mail servers do impose a 400 MB maximum total message size limit. Individual customers can choose a smaller message size limit. We can also customize the handling of "over-sized" e-mails. Please contact us to discuss your specific needs. A couple of important facts:

1. Attachments are typically encoded in what is called Base64[1]. As a result, the actual length of MIME-compliant Base64-encoded binary data is usually about 137% of the original file size.

2. E-mails often contain both plain text and HTML components. This also increases the overall size of the e-mail.