Internet

No one likes unsolicited email (spam) except spammers. The Internet has been overwhelmed with spam that is often offensive, both in volume and content. A great deal of time, money and good will is spent by legitimate Internet users and Internet service providers, like Cox, in dealing with the problem. A number of state legislatures and Congress are also trying to address the problem through legislation.

Cox does not provide its customers’ email addresses to spammers and does not permit its customers to send unsolicited mass emails. Cox Communications has a variety of measures in place to help protect our Cox High Speed Internet customers and our network from spam, and we continue to look for ways to improve our services through the control and elimination of spam. There are things you, as a customer, can do to understand the problem and help to solve it. Following these tips can help reduce the problem for you.

Methods for Controlling Incoming Spam

If you post to newsgroups or message boards, you can change your “from” email address by adding spaces or characters to deter spammers from harvesting it from such locations. If your email address is in your email signature, you can eliminate it or us the same technique. You can also remove your name from major online directories. You should never respond to the “unsubscribe” link in any unsolicited email, as doing so can prompt even more mail from the source.

If you receive an unsolicited commercial email (spam message), you may report it to the sender’s ISP. In order to do this you must first view the complete message header for the spam message to identify the source network, and then send a report to the network’s administrator.

Cox has been successful at identifying addresses of known spammers and adding them to our own black lists. This is just one step in our investigation of network-based anti-spam solutions that will integrate with our email platform. This will allow us to recognize and block spam from known spammers using rules-based methods and also white or black lists.

Methods for Controlling Outgoing Spam

The below information is found in Cox’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), expressly prohibiting the use of the Cox High Speed Internet connection to generate spam. The accounts of customers who violate Cox’s anti-spam policy may be suspended or terminated.

You may not use the Service to send unsolicited bulk or commercial email messages ("spam"). Any unsolicited email must also not direct the recipient to any web site or other resource that uses the service. The Service may not be used to collect responses from unsolicited email sent from accounts on other Internet hosts or email services that violates this Policy or the acceptable use policy of any other Internet service provider. In addition, "mail bombing," the sending of numerous copies of the same or substantially similar messages or very large messages or files with the intent to disrupt a server or account, is prohibited.

To reduce unsolicited bulk email sent on our Cox High Speed Internet network, Cox instituted outbound SMTP traffic filtering (port 25 filtering). Currently Cox also filters all inbound SMTP traffic in an effort to protect unsecured computers on the network from being used as mail relay by potential spammers.

• The outbound SMTP traffic blocking security measure is designed to protect Internet users and the Cox High Speed Internet network. The vast majority of customers are not affected by this practice in any way. However, a small number of customers who use email addresses outside of the @cox.net domain and who do not currently have their SMTP servers set for Cox mail servers do need to change their settings. The requirement that Cox servers be used for all outgoing mail is simply so that Cox can observe and control spammers by removing them from the network.
• Outbound SMTP traffic blocking is an industry standard. Other ISPs who block port 25 include Bellsouth, Earthlink, Mindspring, Verizon, Mediaone, and MSN.
• Since the implementation of the port 25 blocking procedure, Cox has seen significant decreases in the residential Cox High Speed Internet complaint counts for different abuse types impacted by the port 25 blocking. Port scanning complaints decreased by 36%, virus complaints by 41%, spam complaints by 52%, and open proxy by more than 78%.
• Port 25 blocking also helped to control the impact viruses that have polluted the network by preventing their spread via email routing through port 25.