From a website owner and email administrator point of view, block lists are a saving grace when it comes to defending against email spam and comment spam. For example, we use block lists to ban email from Korean and Chinese IP addresses. Another example is how we ban all email addresses from the mail dot ru domain from registering in any of our forums. I don't want to do this, but I really have no choice.
Joi Ito recently blogged about how he thought this was rude, but its really not the administrator's fault. Not to skirt responsibility, but the scourge of spam is so great that its impossible to do it any other way. I'd compare it to how hard it can be to sell. There are so many people trying to sell, that executives have built up barriers around themselves so that they can at least have time to get their own work done. They aren't being rude by not taking every phone call, they legitimately have no choice. I hope that Joi Ito will reconsider his judgment of administrators who block email from Asia as being rude. Maybe he could use his influence in ICANN to do something about spam. What? I have no idea. :-)
Related: Bad Bot Information
Joi Ito recently blogged about how he thought this was rude, but its really not the administrator's fault. Not to skirt responsibility, but the scourge of spam is so great that its impossible to do it any other way. I'd compare it to how hard it can be to sell. There are so many people trying to sell, that executives have built up barriers around themselves so that they can at least have time to get their own work done. They aren't being rude by not taking every phone call, they legitimately have no choice. I hope that Joi Ito will reconsider his judgment of administrators who block email from Asia as being rude. Maybe he could use his influence in ICANN to do something about spam. What? I have no idea. :-)
Related: Bad Bot Information
