Singapore Web Hosting Blog

what is default email account?

default email account is also known as “catch-all account”.

the default/catch-all email account would “catch” any mail that is sent to an invalid email address for your domain. all mail that is sent to an address that does not exist will go to the default email account.

for example, lets say your domain is xyzcompany.com, main hosting account username is xyzcom, you have set up three email addresses, aaa@xyzcompany.com, bbb@xyzcompany.com, ccc@xyzcompany.com.

when someone sends email to, say, ddd@xyzcompany.com (which does not exist), the email will be delivered to the so called default/catch-all email account.

who would send email to email address that does not exist? well, sometimes that could be a typo, or more frequently, spam emails. those spammers scan domain records and then send spams to common-names@any-existing-domain-names, for example, john@yourdomain, alice@yourdomain, sales@yourdomain, etc.

so there’s pros and cons to have default/catch-all account. you would not miss any email even if your partner mis-spelled your name, however, the majority (more than 99.9%), in default account are spam emails.

we provide the facility. you decide if you would like to use it yourself.

how to enable/disable default/catch-all account?

you can enable/disable/configure default account yourself in control panel.

1)login to your control panel, (cpanel), at http://www.yourdomain:2082

2)go to “mail” section, the very first icon

3)click on “default address”

4)click on “set default address”

5)you would see “send all unrouted email for your domain to:” and a text box where you can specify what to do with those unrouted emails. you have 4 options here:

A- enter any real email address in the text box so that the unrouted emails would be forwarded to that real email address

B- enter your main hosting account username, for example “xyzcom” (for example above), so that unrouted emails will be delivered to default account on our server. more details on how to access it below.

C- enter “:blackhole:” in text box so that unrouted emails will be discarded. not recommended as the sender would not receive any bounced back or error message if the sender is not spammer and just made typo.

D- enter “:fail: no such address here” in the text box so that unrouted emails will be bounced.

how to access default account on server if it’s enabled?

among the 4 options, case C and D are considered default-account-disabled as the unrouted emails are gone, not stored anywhere for you to access.

for case A, you can find the forwarded emails in that real email address.

for case B, there is an email account, the default account, on the server, however it’s not a real email address. you can access the default email account using main hosting account username as email account username.

in example above, use “xyzcom” as email account username in your Outlook or Outlook Express settings. password is the main hosting account password.

as you can see in this post on email account setup, you should use entire email address as username for normal email address/account.

so you can access the default account in the same way as normal email account, but the username is very different.

some clients find their account over-quota but could not find where the emails/files are. in many such cases, there’re tons of emails in the default account.

i feel the need to write more about what’s considered spamming so that our clients can avoid sending spams without knowing.

obviously if someone gathers email addresses from forums, newsgroups, web sites, etc. using email address harvesting software and sends emails to the list of email addresses trying to sell his earn-money-quick-nonsense, pills, lose weight products, drugs, your-email-won-price-scam, enlarge-certain-part-of-body…

same if you buy a list of email addresses from somebody else.

that’s absolutely spam. if anyone sends out that kind of email that way, we remove the account without second thought. and the spammer is responsible for any damage made to our server, IP, other web sites.

but in this post, i would like to address such situation that some people may not think it’s spamming while actually it is spamming.

someone may think that sending emails to a list of people is not spamming as long as there’s opt-out options. that is WRONG.

you see, there’s a difference between what’s considered as spamming by law and what’s considered as spamming by real people and ISPs.

according to Singapore law and CAN-SPAM ACT of 2003 (US anti-spam law), you won’t go to jail if you provide opt-out options in the emails (provided you comply to all other items in the law).

however all ISPs, web hosting providers, spamcop, etc. consider it as spamming as long as it is not opt-in.

in other words, you can only send emails to people who actually requested to receive email from you. for example, he signed up for your newsletter by filling out the signup form on your web site himself.

send subscribers what they subscribe for, your newsletter, i mean, your real useful newsletter. don’t send them ads after they sign up, it’s abusive and would be considered as spam.

and you have to be able to prove that, his full name, date of subscription, his IP address, logfile, etc.

as serious web hosting provider, we follow how ISPs, spamcop and hosting industry define spamming.

if you send emails to people who did not request to receive email from you, even though you give opt-out option, it is still spam. we will terminate account that sends spam email. and the client who sends spam will be responsible for it.

pls do not argue that it’s not against the law. it’s a clear cut. sending emails to people who did not request the email is spam and we do not allow that on our servers.

but then, if someone’s activity is considered as spamming by law, it won’t be as simple as getting hosting account terminated. the spammer will be sued and in trouble, big time trouble.

we have zero tolerance to spam for all our client’s interests. if anyone send spam complaint to spamcop against a domain, we have to take action to secure our servers, our IP addresses, and all our clients’ businesses.

so, if you run a mailing list, or newsletter, or something like that, make sure it’s opt-in. double opt-in is better.

do not send mass mailing is best.

according to NYTimes,

America Online and Yahoo, two of the world’s largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered.

read the original report here.

that’s a bold move that may cause other problems.

according to the report, this special treatment includes “go straight to users’ main mailboxes, and will not have to pass the gantlet of spam filters that could divert them to a junk-mail folder or strip them of images and Web links.” but isn’t that what would happen exactly when you send a legitimate email (except that it would go through spam filters)?

how would they justify the fees when people have been sending emails with no problem for free? i’m talking about legitimate emails here, not spams. when i send emails to my friends that use AOL or Yahoo email addresses, they should reach their inboxes without delay, as long as i’m not spamming.

if my emails get filtered to junk mail folder or completely filtered out, it’s their spam filter’s fault, not mine. how would they convince me to pay when THEIR system is malfunctioning?

more interestingly, what would happen to unpaid emails when the postage system is put into place? get delivered as usual? then back to point above, why should i pay? go through more filters so that some of legitimate emails must be filtered out in order to show how important the postage is? that’s simply not right. if that happens, i would expect people dropping their AOL or Yahoo address.

a bigger concern is, will it solve spam issue? most likely no. in offline world, postage is more expensive, yet we receive ads, mail order, catolog, etc. daily in letterbox. if by paying postage, emails will be guaranteed to be delivered bypassing spam filter, tons of spammers would start paying and get their spam emails delivered.

spams are still spams. spam emails would not become legitimate because they’re paid.

i guess their logic is, spammers would not pay because they are spammers. but my logic is, spammers do not spam for the sake of spam. they do it for profit. as long as there’s profit, why not pay for the postage? if they cannot afford “1/4 of a cent to a penny” for a guaranteed reader, they are in wrong business.

what if someone pay and send phishing email?

Paying senders will be assured that their messages will be delivered to AOL users’ main in-boxes and marked as “AOL Certified E-Mail.”

some really unfortunate thing may happen then.

of course, it would reduce the number of spams for sure. if snail mail is free, people would find hundreds of ads in mailbox everyday instead of a few.