BNSWest Internet Services, Inc. Junk E-mail Policy

For a long time, we have had to contend with junk mail in our mailboxes at home and work. Most of us identify it by the bulk mail postage identifier, and promptly throw it in the trash. There are some people who even like it. At BNSWest we laughed when we read about a person in Alaska who tried to get on every junk mail list possible, so he could burn it and heat his house.

We now have to contend with the same junk mail advertiser mindset in our e-mail accounts. This variety of unsolicited mail can be the most frustrating and annoying. Not only does it take time to download the unwanted materials, but it consumes space on our hard drives and, costs us money to receive. Think of it like this: Wouldn't it be annoying if you had to pay for the mail you receive from the Post Office? Here's an example, you walk into the Post Office, pay 32 cents each for 9 letters, open them, and find only advertisements. That's much the way e-mail works on the Internet. The person who receives the e-mail pays, not the sender.

Junk e-mail is fast becoming the scourge of the internet user. If we want to know about a service or product, we can go look for it on the net. Its not like search engines don't exist! Many inconsiderate advertisers plague our mail boxes with pleas for our money. Some of the folks at BNSWest get several hundred advertisements each week!

Many BNSWest clients have expressed their wishes for us to make this stop. We can't convince everyone on the internet to "Play by the Rules," but can block junk e-mail from certain known sites. It is BNSWest's policy that if we get complaints from more than three clients, or if we detect a mass-mailing from anywhere on the Internet, the site or person sending it will no longer be able to send mail to and/or through BNSWest.

It even gets worse. There is software out now that forges return addresses and uses a random mail server on the Internet to junk e-mail people. This puts a heavy tax in the "victim" server, and can be considered theft of service. BNSWest was attacked by one of these programs recently. It took a whole day to clean up the mess. Because of this, the mail server at BNSWest will now only relay mail coming from approved domains. Most clients shouldn't notice any difference, it will still send and receive e-mail from anywhere on the net. If you are traveling, please find a local "SMTP" server and enter that into your e-mail software. If you do, you can still use your BNSWest internet account to send and receive e-mail from where ever you may be.

BNSWest neither supports, approves of, nor tolerates any form of unsolicited e-mail. If we have cause to believe that a BNSWest Internet user sent junk mail, we will take appropriate actions. If we discover incoming junk mail, we will block the offending person or site's e-mail address. If any of the domains we administer are used by junk e-mailers as a forged address, we will take appropriate legal action, if necessary, to recover our expenses in handling the problem.