“don’t be evil” ? Yeah, right, and I’d like a pony.
As google's gmail service has ramped up, I've been seeing a slow, but increasing, flow of spam coming from the google servers. And, of course, all of this spam gets sent off to the abuse desk at google. I don't know if I've ever gotten a "we killed us a spammer today, thanks for the heads-up" from them (little tiny ISP s are happy to give me this sort of feedback. The big free email account providers, on the other hand, don't seem to be on the ball nearly as much), but today I got the next best thing -- a hotmail-style "don't bother us, we've got more important things to do than kick spammers off our network" note:
Thank you for your abuse report. We apologize for any inconvenience you might have experienced^M.
Google takes abuse situations very seriously. To help us process your request as quickly as possible, please fill out the form specific to your situation^M.
- If you believe that your account may have been compromised, please visit^M: https://services.google.com/inquiry/gmail_security^M1
- To report a message that violates the Gmail Terms of Use or Program Policies, please visit: https://services.google.com/inquiry/gmail_security^M2
- To report an established account for sale, please visit^M: https://services.google.com/inquiry/gmail_security^M3
- To report all other security and/or abuse-related issues, please visit^M: https://services.google.com/inquiry/gmail_security^M4
If we find that the Gmail Terms of Use have been violated, we will take the appropriate actions and, if necessary, discontinue Gmail service for the account(s) in question. To read the Gmail Terms of Use, please visit: http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/terms_of_use.html^M.
We appreciate the urgent nature of your message, and thank you for your cooperation. We will respond to your report as soon as possible^M.
Sincerely^M,
(yes, the stupid extra \r's were in the message, for that added touch of "yes! we've outsourced to the cheapest possible overseas technical support organization we can find, because hiring good technical support will stop the board from becoming wealthier than the Walton family!")
Now, I try to be reasonable, and I have been known to give large souless monopolies the benefit of the doubt even past the point where it's obvious that they've successfully excised any of the good intentions that they started with, but if a company uses their SMTP servers to send me spam, part of the deal is that they will let me use their SMTP servers to complain about the goddamn spam.
So I sent abuse@google.com and postmaster@google.com a little note about this spam.
But don't ask me to set up special procedures for google just because it's google. If gmail can deliver me spam via SMTP, you can accept abuse reports via SMTP as well.
Thank you
-david parsons
I wonder if they'll apologise, or even explain. If they don't, no problem; I've been meaning to put per-user blacklists into postoffice, and once I do that I can blacklist gmail without interfering with the best's email exchanges with people who switched to google when I still thought they actually still meant their cutesy little "don't be evil" motto.