Postini Pro and Con
Members of the ISP-Tech list discuss, yes, the pros and cons of various spam and anti-virus technologies, starting with Postini’s service for ISPs.
On the ISP-Tech list in May, MK inquired,
“We are considering signing up with Postini for spam and virus checking of our emails. Is anybody using them? Can you tell me how well it works?”
AL provided the sole voice of warning:
“They raised our rates 300 percent, and I have trapped 4575 messages in six days in my server that slipped through Postini. I would not recommend them at all: I would recommend going to Vircom instead, and getting modusMail.”
A number of others only had good things to say:
[CR enthused” “We have had excellent results with them: I would have no problem recommending them. Except for a few disgruntled customers who didn’t understand the concept and thought we were ’tampering’ with their email, customer response has been very positive.”
[NS agreed” “Postini has stopped a lot of spam-filled and virus-filled emails, and they have fast response time when it comes to technical support. I have had no issues with them.”
[CH contended” “If we didn’t have Postini, I think at least 50 percent of our users would have the Klez virus by now.”
Others suggested that it’s best to make sure your subscribers want the service before taking it on:
[JR noted” “We’re a small ISP, and we’re not sure that our users would pay an extra dollar or two a month for virus and spam removal.”
[JS observed” “I went through their sales presentation. The only problem I had was meeting their minimum of 60 accounts. I queried all my subscribers and asked if they would be willing to pay an additional fifty cents a month to have total control over spam and virus laden emails: in every single case, despite what you hear from the news, they didn’t think it was that big a problem. I think the bottom line is, if you do a reasonable filtering routine (open relay and one of the RBLs), that’s satisfactory. For many of my subscribers, if they didn’t get spam, they wouldn’t get any email at all. Somebody must read the junk mail, or it would have gone away by now.”
| Related articles: | ||
| [Nov. 20, 2001” | Postini Revisited | |
| [July 24, 2001” | E-mail Virus Protection as Certain as Death and Taxes | |
| [March 27, 2001” | Fighting Snow White And The Naked Wife | |
