BT-Yahoo! anti-spam measure 'backfires'

Category: Security

May 19th 08, 08:58

An anti-spamming initiative provided by Yahoo! for BT has been temporarily suspended after causing "chaos", it has emerged.

Following the introduction of the measure, which saw some BT customers unable to send emails, it has been withdrawn for a period, the Guardian reports.

Intended to block emails that did not display a BT or Yahoo! address in the from field, the security feature reportedly failed to cater to consumers wishing to send emails from their own domain names.

People who tried to do this were confronted with unsent emails and messages asking them to validate their domain through a link because error 553 had occurred.

"BT's new security could be a good idea. Trouble is, they implemented it without telling anyone, then made it fiendishly complex to fix. The issue is even more confused by the apparently pointless partnership with Yahoo!," Phil Gyford, a freelance web consultant and blogger, told the newspaper.

Meanwhile, a $230 million (£118 million) judgement has been issued to two spammers responsible for more than 730,000 junk messages on social networking site MySpace, according to the Associated Press.

This news story was brought to you by Bluhalo, a leading UK digital agency.

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