Spam wars: The ISP strikes back

Prachi Verma in New Delhi

BEWARE, spammers of cyberspace! ISPs, led by none other than the venerable VSNL, are on the warpath to block you out.

With VSNL already blocking small corporates and the small and medium enterprise (SME) segments for relay of simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) service through its mail servers, HCLInfiNet is also on its way to do so.

Last week, VSNL announced that all users who use VSNL’s dial-up/Internet-leased lines for Internet access and have taken third party mail solutions, which does not provide users with the facility of sending mails, have been affected.

This category of users have been given two options by VSNL, either they can insist on SMTP/HTTP facility from the service provider to send mail or they can subscribe to the VSNL’s VMAIL service for this purpose.

Spammers, which largely comprise small and medium businesses, often use domain name service (DNS) facilities from third parties that do not offer outgoing e-mail services. For this, spammers use their VSNL IDs which could land the service provider in trouble with the potential of getting blacklisted, according to VSNL chief general manager KP Tiwari.

HCLInfinet too is following suit, although for now it is fighting spam with its anti-spamming software.

“In a month or two, we plan to restrict corporates and SMEs using third party solutions from using our servers to send mail,” HCLInfiNet head of services K Shiv Kumar said. It is also planning an option similar to VSNL’s V-MAIL.

“We intend to launch a service similar to the VSNL’s V-MAIL and hope to earn at least Rs 2 to 3 lakh per year by providing this service. In all, we are targeting at least 2,000 to 3,000 SME users,” Mr Shivkumar added.

While Mantraonline-the ISP service offered by Bharti Broadband Networks Limited, NOW and Net4india intend to fight spamming using less aggressive measures. They have no plans to block any particular segment from its services for sending mail.

“We do not want to be too harsh on our users. We will continue to keep a regular watch on our users sending spam mail, and only after giving warnings will we eventually block the user from our services,” Bharti Broadband Networks Limited, CEO Ashok Juneja said.

Net4india has a different strategy altogether to fight spamming. It has alliances with three anti-spamming companies, which keep track of all the users sending spam mail, after which they inform the ISP operator about the user misusing the services.

Data Access India’s ISP-NOW, has developed a software which fights spamming and has invested about Rs 4.3 crore in developing the security tools and the software.

“We do not plan to block any of our users from using our services as our software will take care of spamming. It detects spamming and informs us about the origin of the spam mail,” Data Access India director Sarvesh Vohra explained.