About UCEPROTECT and their "Level-3" IP Blacklist
This announcement, published on TheOpenRoad Foundry by TheOpenRoad Customer support; is information regarding UCEPROTECT and their "Level-3" IP blacklisting service, primarily aimed towards email blocking.
TheOpenRoad Customer Support receives a daily average of ~36 customer support tickets per hour on business days, and ~19 per hour on weekends/public holidays. We're publishing this announcement because this has become a frequently asked question (FAQ) recently, primarily from TheOpenRoad customers involved with web hosting, and corporate domain management solutions.
Understanding UCEPROTECT
In reference to UCEPROTECT's official website, this specific blacklist (Level-3) should not be used lightly to block incoming traffic; as this RBL can, and does blacklist entire ASN's, or even entire hosting providers/ISP's. The general consensus about this RBL blacklist is that: when you use this blacklist, you will absolutely be blocking legitimate traffic as well.
According to UCEPROTECT, which also proclaims themselves as "UCEPROTECT-Orga":
This blacklist has been created for HARDLINERS. It can, and probably will cause collateral damage to innocent users when used to block email.
The recommended use of Level 3 is incorporating it into a scoring system, to give e.g. 2 points on a ‘match’ where 5 or more points trigger a spam tag.
TheOpenRoad Customer Support does not encourage our customers to utilize this RBL blacklist in order to block traffic, if we were to say this to you bluntly: "It's overkill!"
We monitor this RBL system, like all other providers for purely informational purposes because our core principle is that the end user of our products and solutions should be able to quickly know weather you are blocked from this blacklist system or not.
Delisting from UCEPROTECT
We know that many of you reading this might also be intensely interested in being delisted from this RBL blacklisting service, and as your hosting provider; we feel obligated to tell you the facts and truth to the best of our knowledge. We know how these blacklisting services operate, how they operate, and we know they can be difficult to work with; we have and still continue to negotiate with these organizations running IP blacklists.
UCEPROTECT offers a de-listing service in the form of a paid service charge, TheOpenRoad Customer Support does not support nor advise someone to pay money in order to de-list an IP address, especially in the common event where you have done nothing wrong, and your have had your innocent IP blacklisted automatically for no reason.
We ask that if possible, you ignore UCEPROTECT as a priority and disregard it as a major factor in deciding your reputation. Several TheOpenRoad customers have reported to us that on occasion, you may be delisted automatically at a completely random point in time; and then be relisted again shortly after for no apparent reason at all.
If you use a 3rd party IP monitoring service (we recommend HetrixTools), you have the option to opt-out of this RBL and ignore it completely from your account by following this external guide published.
Helpful resources
About this article
- Written by Marv Eaton, a TheOpenRoad Support employee.
- Still need help? Please write to us in the comment section below or contact TheOpenRoad support.
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