My main issue is one big US company which has history of engaging in monopolistic practces. They blocked a huge range of Linode IP space in December/January including one of my servers which has a totally clean record, supports every industry standard and is only used by my immediate family. It is guilt by association but blocking email because someone lives in the wrong neighborhood isn't a civil rights violation unfortunately.
When a very big company blocks nearly all email from another company that they compete with in hosting services I think it should be investigated as a possible abuse of market power by the EU and DOJ. I think there are important questions to be asked about the damage this does to competition and consumer choice.
I wouldn't worry about UCEPROTECT listing. They have an option to pay to remove IPs which to me looks like a protection racket. If anyone blocks solely on the basis of those lists instead of taking signals from more respectable block lists they are only hurting their own customers by blocking legitimate email.
I have multiple servers at multiple providers for various things so it is relatively trivial for me to add a rule to a transport map and have my server securely login into another machine to relay the email to a misbehaving receiver. But that requires slightly more than minimal knowledge and many people are pushed towards a small number of gatekeepers who will ultimately be purchased by a cartel of mega companies and nobody will know how to run a mail server anymore. Which is a shame because it really isn't very hard or very technical. What makes it tedious is the behaviour of some companies. The technical workaround to a block is as easy as routing email via another IP and takes a few minutes.
But then there is the process of getting the original IP unblocked, sometimes via multiple processes in businesses with a single owner, seemingly none of them knowing what the others or even their own tech people are doing. And/or swapping out the IP for one in a clean block.
When a very big company blocks nearly all email from another company that they compete with in hosting services I think it should be investigated as a possible abuse of market power by the EU and DOJ. I think there are important questions to be asked about the damage this does to competition and consumer choice.
I wouldn't worry about UCEPROTECT listing. They have an option to pay to remove IPs which to me looks like a protection racket. If anyone blocks solely on the basis of those lists instead of taking signals from more respectable block lists they are only hurting their own customers by blocking legitimate email.
I have multiple servers at multiple providers for various things so it is relatively trivial for me to add a rule to a transport map and have my server securely login into another machine to relay the email to a misbehaving receiver. But that requires slightly more than minimal knowledge and many people are pushed towards a small number of gatekeepers who will ultimately be purchased by a cartel of mega companies and nobody will know how to run a mail server anymore. Which is a shame because it really isn't very hard or very technical. What makes it tedious is the behaviour of some companies. The technical workaround to a block is as easy as routing email via another IP and takes a few minutes.
But then there is the process of getting the original IP unblocked, sometimes via multiple processes in businesses with a single owner, seemingly none of them knowing what the others or even their own tech people are doing. And/or swapping out the IP for one in a clean block.