Re: [Asrg] draft-irtf-asrg-bcp-blacklists-07 [re-send]

[Seth <[e-mail]>]

Neil Schwartzman <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Allow me to take a brief moment to draw a significant line between
> the Spamhaus business model, and one based upon delisting. For those
> too drunk, blind, or somehow mentally deficient to spot it for
> themselves, it is simple. One charges the beneficiaries of a given
> DNSBL (Spamhaus) and thus motivates a blacklist operator to run the
> very best product possible.

Why do you believe there is no incentive to run a not-quite-as-good
product if either (1) it's a lot cheaper to do that, or (2) doing that
provides more revenue (e.g. not listing a large customer who would
cease being a customer if listed)?

>  The other, such as previously done by SORBS, or now UCE Protect,
>  motivates the DNSBL operator to list as many IPs as possible (1)
>  for financial profit.

Then why not list 0/0 and maximize revenue?  Obviously, the
willingness of listees to pay for (expedited) removal depends on the
amount of usage the list gets, and false positives tend to decrease
that usage.  There is therefore the same sort of tension between doing
what provides immediate revenue and keeping the list going (and,
presumably, profitable) in the long term.

> (1) UCE Protect claims to have listed a significant number of IPs in the past week:
>
> Spammer listings within the last 7 days:
> Level 1: 1767801 IP's, Level 2: 21354 Allocations, Level 3: 583 ASN's. Last Updated: 01.03.2011 13:01 CET

Given automatic 7-day delisting, at least for Level 1, isn't that
actually the full size of their list?  Their page seems to indicate a
decrease in the size of Level 1, which would argue that way.

Seth