Monday, April 25, 2016

Email Accounts, Flex.com, Google GMAIL and July 2007

I used to run the email servers for flex.com such that every "@flex.com" email address was handled internally by our very own mail servers. But a big problem happened...

Here is an excerpt from July 7, 2007:

The Problem:

YAHOO, AOL and other mail server systems are blocking all FLEX.COM emails.

The reason:

Spammers are slamming Flex.com users. Some of these flex users have .forward files that in effect redirects these spams to places like Yahoo. So Yahoo et al bans FLEX.COM

Also, a few spammers have signed up for flexnet accounts. Recently a user "guitar" used our flexnet mail servers to send out tons of spam. He/she has since been wiped out of our systems, but this leaves open the problem of how can flexnet monitor outgoing emails?

Thousands of emails each day leave flexnet.

The solution:

Flexnet has moved all flex users over to our GMAIL partnership email system. By sending out email from FlexGmail (my name for this Flex-Gmail relationship), your Yahoo emails will be accepted.

So since July 2007, all domain mail "@flex.com" has been handled by Google/Gmail. In fact, we were part of the beta rollout for what is now termed "business app" by Google.

Incidentally, Google is now charging $5 per user per month for any domain that NOW wants to use their services.

However, flex.com is grandfathered gratis. WE PAY NOT A CENT TO GOOGLE.

Google has in the past and just now has SUSPENDED certain email accounts "@flex.com".   Google does not do this lightly but will pro-actively suspend email accounts for serious reasons (flagged accounts).

The important thing to remember is I Del Wong will not jeopardize our grandfathered relationship with GMAIL. What Google decides is pretty much gospel. Otherwise Google could easily kick flex.com out from its treasured grandfathered status.

WE WILL NOT PERMIT ANY EMAIL ACCOUNT SHENANIGANS. I rather risk losing the future business of a flex.com account than risk our relationship with Google.

All suspended email accounts are advised to seek a MOTION TO COMPEL from a court of law. This will provide us with a paper trail that we can then use to plead any case with Gmail/Google should they move to revoke our treasured grandfathered status.

After we receive your court order, we will then and only then re-enable any email account that Gmail/Google has suspended with the understanding that any data storage present in such account will be backup elsewhere as we will then DELETE SUCH OFFENDING EMAIL ACCOUNT IMMEDIATELY after backup.

Mailing Address:
FlexNet Inc
P.O.Box 22481
Honolulu, HI 96823-2481

Know that flex.com had no part whatsoever in the suspension of your email account. GOOGLE SUSPENDED YOUR ACCOUNT, NOT FLEX. Do you understand this?

Also demanding immediate responses to any email correspondence is certainly not a good idea! We usually respond within a few days to requests. And if you are a non-paying entity, then come on, what exactly gives you the right to demand any type of expediency?

For the specific suspended email account in question, we responded within ONE BUSINESS DAY yet you complain we were too slow!

Shut The Hell Up. And Carry On...

1 comment:

Al said...

I received a suspension notice 30 April 2016 but google mail already put it into the spam folder. I did have to log into flex web mail to revive my email client access. That is not unusual. Del, I sent you 2 emails on 4 may 2016 about www.flex.com and its https parts being unreachable. Hope they came through. My email client shows them sent but not the webmail's sent folder for unknown reason. I am on the limited url of flex.com to type this.