new ISP spam blocking (not desirable)

We all know that last year some ISPs started blocking using a remote server for SMTP. It appears that these ISPs are now also blocking all computer generated e-mails sent. This includes invoices, order confirmations etc (as well as spam which I think is their objective) This is a restriction that I am sure a lot of legitimate Internet businesses won’t be able to live with. As of last Tuesday"ish", I found that I was no longer receiving invoices or confirmations from businesses I purchase from on a regular basis. I can and am changing my default e-mail with them from Verizon to my domain address but what about the general public who make Internet purchases? I have a “catch all” address set up on my site that keeps all spam mail off the server and now any auto e-mails that get kicked back. Normally any e-mail that gets sent to a non existing address gets bounces to this catch all address, comes to my machine and is deletes. (I don’t even read them). But now, the only work around that I can think of is to add an additional filter to retain any legitimate e-mails generated by my site that get kicked back because the user/customer is with Verizon or MSN (I am sure there are others) Then I just need to create a new mail and manually send the generated e-mail to them. I feel this is “bull…” and think it may hurt other web sites that may not realize this new spam blocking technique. Verizon (my local IPS) I know implemented this as of last Wednesday or so… I could contact Verizon, but this would be of no real help since this is would be at the customer’s ISP. I think some control levels should be left to educating the end user.

Any suggestions on a direction to move on this issue?

Thanks

I believe the blocking you are talking about is mainly for port 25 on the servers controlled by your upstream ISP. What I mean is... whenever you try to send mail to somebody and you're connecting to your ISP's mail server using port 25, if your ISP has decided to block that port, then you're screwed. They do this because (supposedly) the ISP is expecting you to use their online webmail system (for example). This is done to prevent their own customers from spamming others, and it allows them to more easily monitor email traffic by funneling it through a different system. For example, if you decided to setup some kind of system on your personal computer for sending out hordes of spam, if they block port 25 it will most likely stop you.

Now, let's pretend for a moment that you have no issues with port 25 or any other issue with your ISP. You try to send an email to your friend who is on another network. Their system should ALWAYS be open to accept incoming mail. Of course they may have some kind of spam control that is guarding that gateway, and it may cause your email to be rejected, but if you are not a spammer and you are sending legitimate mail, you should contact that person's ISP, or contact your friend and ask them to contact their ISP and get the situation resolved. Most ISP's (from my experience) will not really respond to outside parties who are trying to send mail to people on their network. You aren't paying them any money, so they dont' care about you. Now, if you are one of their customers and you are having trouble receiving mail from your grandma, then they certainly don't want to risk losing a customer and should be willing to help you get things cleared up. If they aren't willing to help you under those circumstances, you should get another ISP who actually gives a crap about their own customers.