Policy: Inbound Catchall & Pre-Forwarding

--VQ-- · Site Admin Joined: 06 Jan 2003 Posts: 484

vqME: The Personal Security Service for Personal Use
vqME is a personal service for individual users and may be used only for personal correspondence and retail purchases that you initiate. Business users or high volume households should use vqNow, our small business service, and not vqME. With vqNow, email for your entire domain passes through our servers - and it does so before it gets to your email service rather than afterwards.

A vqME account may be shared among family members, however it is not for use with a business or for any individual who owns their own mail server. If you own a personal domain (myfamily.com or myhobby.com - but not a business domain), you may forward mail from individual addresses at your domain (up to 5) just as with an ISP address. But you must not use a "catchall" address, aliases, pre-fowarding, or any technique that routes mail from any address other than the ones you register on your vqME page of protected addresses. There is one exception: Although we do not permit users to forward a domain "catchall" address or to pre-forward between addresses, we currently permit users to create and forward "excess" addresses from their personal/family domain - but only under strict conditions.

The Ground Rules
Generally, mail directed to your vqME profiles must be originally sent to an address that is registered on your page of protected addresses. However, you may additionally forward mail sent to multiple custom addresses with these conditions:

The address must be created and disclosed in a single-purpose private venue such as an in-person meeting or for a business transaction with someone you trust.
Each addresses must be added to your List-Server list at the same time you forward the custom address.
Incoming mail must be forwarded from each individual List-Server address. Do not use vqME incoming POP feature, aliasing, catchall or pre-forwarding. [Details]
Overall email volume (including spam) must be within the limits for an individual vqME account.

We reserve the right to limit or deny service to anyone routing mail to a personal vqME account beyond the 5 individually registered addresses. In most cases, our business platform vqNow is the better solution. It supports the significantly higher volume associated with multiple addresses, and it is designed to protect an entire domain.

What is a Domain Catchall?
When mail arrives at an ISP or hosted email service with an unrecognized address it is typically returned to the sender with a bounce message like this: "Error 5xx: Undeliverable - no such user." An optional feature of any domain or hosted email service designates one mailbox as a "catchall" address or alternatively forwards mail sent to any username without a mailbox. In this case, all mail is accepted and no address is returned as undeliverable.

How Do People Use A Catchall Address?
Some individuals who own their own domain create a custom address for every purchase or even for each recipient. For example, when subscribing to Time Magazine, they are TimeSubscriber@mydomain.com and when purchasing from Amazon, they are Amazon@mydomain.com. Adherents of this practice feel that it offers an effective way to cut off mail sent to any address that begins to attract spam.

It is tempting to forward email for an entire domain to vqME by enabling the "catchall" feature on one of the forwarded addresses. In this case, the domain owner needn't create or remember the many addresses given out over the years. He or she simply makes up an address at will and places it on the List-Server list. For example, when lecturing to a large audience and expecting feedback, they tell everyone to write to may_lecture@mydomain.com. With a catchall, it is not necessary to create a mailbox by that name. The mail will be accepted because the address is on the List-Server list.

But this technique has serious drawbacks - and is not even necessary. Recently, we have begun to enforce a policy which limits the way in which custom addresses can be used.

Do vqME Users Benefit from a Catchall Address?
Not really! Before there was vqME, it was very helpful. But now that you have very effective protection from spam, it provides no value. You can have one or two identities (vqME allows 5 separate addresses), and you can even publish your address wherever you wish. You will only get the mail that you want - and none of the mail that you don't. That's how email was meant to be. No need to hide behind aliases or custom addresses. Finally, you can be "Bob", an not "TimeSubscriber". Let your vqME account sort out the gold from the chaff.

What is the Problem with Catchall Addresses?
Every domain attracts dictionary attacks at one time or another. These attacks generate tens of thousands of emails over the course of a few minutes hogging the resources of a server that is reserved for individual retail users (accounts limited to 5 explicitly named addresses).

The Bottom Line: Using More Than 5 Addresses?
Under certain conditions, we allow vqME users to forward more than 5 addresses to their vqME mailboxes - but only under the Ground Rules listed near the top of this page.