Comcast email policy

I asked Comcast about their email policies. Their response:

"There is a maximum number of recipients that you can have in the To:, Cc:, and Bcc: fields, a maximum number of times you can click Send per minute, and a maximum amount of messages you can send at one time. Once our mail server detects that multiple addresses in your To: field do not exist, the e-mail will not be sent to any other recipients. Due to security concerns, we cannot reveal the actual limitations."

While I can understand their reluctance to reveal this information, it puts legitimate customers in the position of not knowing exactly what they've purchased. Not to mention that any would-be spammer could simply test their system and determine the exact limitations.

It also puts customers in a Catch 22 situation. Do you send each message immediately, in which case you risk violating the number of sends per minute? Or do you queue messages, in which case you risk violating the max number to send at one time?

And how many names can you include on mailing lists? What about folks who have no email, who are on the list so that everyone who does have email can see the whole list?

Reply to
Steve
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Why is this a problem? Have you actually run into this limitation?

I have a Comcast cable modem at one of my houses, and I've never needed to exceed their addressee limits. If what you're doing is running afoul of this limitation, then you should cancel your service and get DSL.

By the same token, so could you.

Frankly, I find Cox's policy of only allowing me to use *their* SMTP server to send email messages more of a pain than what you're describing. I have to constantly change my SMTP server settings depending on whether I am at home or on the road, and it's a big PITA. But it also nails the lid shut on SPAMmers who zombify the average clueless user's computer and use it to send out tons of SPAM.

Huh? If someone has no email address, how can you put their email address on an email mailing list?

Reply to
Scott en Aztlán

Yup. It's apparently a moving target, but it looks like 8-9 is now the maximum number of emails that can be sent at once.

True, but a legitimate user would be a lot less likely to go to the trouble.

By using a dummy address, like snipped-for-privacy@noemail.inv. This is done, for instance, on mailing lists for bridge groups that may have 6 or more tables (24+ people), to keep track of the number actually signed up.

Reply to
Steve

Comcast's outbound limit is 9 per batch. Some days it appears to be

8.
Reply to
Steve

All you know is you purchased an always on internet connection with email accounts and usenet access.

Yes you are absolutly correct.

Well, I am always violating the _sends per minute_ rule one or more a week and have been doing it for a year.

And if someone on that email list gets a virus, everyone else on that email could get a virus emailed to them.

Well, you should remove them from the list.

Then email the member list as part of the email.

Reply to
Bit Twister

Virtually every major ISP has a similar policy.

I don't know how many emails you intend to send a day, but generally speaking the outbound limit is 100. If you manage your address book responsibly, you shouldn't get caught up in the bounce filter.

You could always mail in batches of 20 and queue them for sending every 90 seconds.

A_C

Reply to
Agent_C

Because when I tried to send 10, they bounced. And Comcast later confirmed it to me. This was a while ago, may have changed since then.

Reply to
Steve

I don't believe that. How do you know?

A_C

Reply to
Agent_C

If you were to translate this paragraph to English, how would you word it? What would be the point of including people who have no email on an email list?

Reply to
Bob Ward

on that

Another issue is that if you cc: multiple people in an email, any one of them could use all the addresses for spam, or pass them on to spammers somehow, or just add them all to their own "mailing list". This can result in unwanted email for everyone on the list. Using Bcc: may avoid this hazard.

A friend of mine sent me and others political email, and I ended up on more than one political "Broadcast" lists, making that account next to useless.

Bob

Reply to
Bob

It's not really a secret. See

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.

Per Comcast support: "The limit is 100 total recipients per email. This includes everything in the To, CC and BCC fields combined."

Per Comcast support: "Our email server will only allow 20 emails per connection (messages that are composed offline and sent simultaneously as part of a single connection to the server). To avoid this, you will need to have these broken out (reduced to less than 20) and sent a few minutes apart as a seperate connection."

mady

Reply to
mady

That is 9 or 8 in a short amount of time! I also had this happen to me when I put too many people in the cc or bcc line.

Reply to
f/f george

Either he doesn't know, or it's not in effect everywhere. I just sent

10 to test right now, and they went through.
Reply to
Marcio Watanabe

Here in Dallas TX, my logs show I can send 6 messages back to back before I get host smtp.comcast.net[204.127.198.27] refused to talk to me: 450 too frequent connects from 24.1.212.248, please try again later.

Reply to
Bit Twister

My experience is that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I suspect they keep changing their parameters. It's understandable, but can be pretty annoying to their legitimate customers.

Reply to
Steve

Just tried using 204.127.198.27 and the same 10 messages went through. I'm in Los Angeles, CA.

Reply to
Marcio Watanabe

Don't get me wrong, my script sends to 26 people a seperate mail message and all 26 messages go into my MTA postfix on linux without problem. It is later when the MTA connects to comcast server and tries to connect for each message under a second.

Log shows some in Nov 14 11:17:04 Nov 14 11:17:05 Nov 14 11:17:08 Nov 14 11:17:09 Then my MTA backs off for 10 minutes.

Reply to
Bit Twister

Sorry, I'm a little late to the party!

It appears that there are two different things being discussed here.

1 - The number of e-mail per send (these are messages composed off-line and sent all at once). As Mady mentions later in this thread, this number is 20 2 - The number of sends per time period (these are e-mail composed and sent seperately). This number has not been published as far as I can tell. If you compose and send messages in rapid succession, you will trigger the "too many connections" error. Sending will then be blocked altogether for a period of time.

HTH.

Reply to
Spector

Well, maybe. Comcast says 20, but I've had 10 bounce, several times. So I keep it to 9 max.

Here's what Comcast has to say. It's pretty easy to exceed the per-minute limit when sending out individual copy/paste emails.

From: Comcast Internet Customer Care

When sending out emails, there is a limit of 3 times per minute that a user can click Send. If the rate is exceeded, please wait 70 seconds and try again. Each subsequent use of the Send button prior to the expiration of the 60 second waiting period will cause an additional 60 second wait.

The maximum number of recipients allowed for any email sent via Comcast is 99. Keep the total number of recipients in the TO, CC and BCC field under 100.

Once our mail server detects that 20 of the email addresses in your TO field do not exist, an error will be generated and the email will not be sent to any other recipients.

Reply to
Steve

This number varies. I've had it bounce everything when I sent over 9.

Reply to
Steve

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