An attempt to fight spam backfired this week, leaving some Verizon customers unable to receive e-mail from friends, family and businesses that use Road Runner service through Bright House Networks.
The two companies tried to exchange "white lists," approved e-mail addresses. Instead Verizon ended up blocking the Road Runner addresses.
Some Verizon customers say the problem started as early as last Friday. It affected an unknown number of Verizon customers in the Tampa Bay area and other parts of the country.
"As we went through the process, we realized that a mistake had been made," said Bob Elek, Verizon's spokesman in Tampa. "We have gone back and are in the process of correcting those errors."
Inadvertent e-mail blocking is one of the side effects of the war on junk e-mail, better known as spam. Internet service providers are getting increasingly aggressive in trying to stop the flow of junk e-mail, which makes up about half of the messages sent.
Sometimes legitimate messages and e-mail accounts are accidentally caught in the net. In April, for example, America Online blocked the city of St. Petersburg from sending messages to AOL members because it had misidentified the city as a spammer.
Verizon and Bright House, which handles Road Runner access in the bay area, expected the problem to be fixed by sometime today.
Verizon offers dial-up phone connections to the Internet as well as high-speed DSL service over phone wires. It competes with Bright House, the bay area's dominant cable television provider, which offers high-speed Internet service over its cable lines.
The Internet service providers danced around the issue of blame. A Bright House memo said Verizon had "some technical issues" in the process, while Elek said simply that the company was working to get it fixed.
"We're trying to do something that's basically good for consumers," Elek said. "We have had no problems with other ISPs."
Whoever is responsible, Gerda Miller of Largo, a Verizon subscriber, wants to receive e-mail from a friend on Road Runner in Tampa.
"I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting mail," Miller said. She says she told a Verizon customer support rep: "I'm paying full price. If I can't get my e-mail, I'll just have to switch."
