[SURBL-Announce] SURBL Usage Policy announcement - grace period through Feb 28, 2009

[SURBL Announcement list [READONLY]]

Dear member of the SURBL community:

As a valued member of the SURBL community, we are contacting you to
provide an update on changes that SURBL has made to its licensing and
usage policies, in particular for rsync data feed access.  SURBL is
dedicated to helping the community detect unsolicited messages, and
trust the service is working effectively for your organization.

It's important that your organization is aware of these licensing
changes to avoid any service interruptions.  We are providing you this
notice to ensure you are aware of the policy changes, and can help
your organization to make a proactive decision.

The primary objective of the SURBL project is to ensure that SURBL
remains effective, of the highest quality, and sustainable over the
long term.  The goal is to provide a tool that remains available and
effective for the Internet community to control the spiraling growth
of unsolicited messages, particularly those sent using botnets.  As
such, SURBL is following a model that has proven successful in gaining
the support of subscribers from its user community.  The new licensing
policy requires organizations exceeding 1,000 email users or 250,000
messages per day to register and sign up for the Sponsored Data
Service (SDS).  The funding will be used to enable SURBL to continue
as a sustainable organization, and to enhance the effectiveness and
capabilities of its service. The funding is, by design, very moderate
and will provide much needed support to sustain this project.

The needs of the SURBL user community have always been foremost in our
planning.  Some of the benefits to subscribers include direct access
to technical support, the ability to whitelist web sites, and
increased rsync updating frequencies.  In addition, the whole SURBL
community will benefit from expanded research to further improve the
speed, completeness and accuracy of the list data.  SURBL's vision is
to continue to enhance the functionality, quality, and overall
effectiveness for the entire user community.

Please note that SURBL is allowing a grace period through Feb 28,
2009.  Effective March 1, 2009 SURBL will begin restricting access to
the datafeed service for unregistered users.  Datafeed users who
register for SDS prior to Jan 31, 2009, will receive 18 months service
for the price of 12 months.

SURBL has partnered with MXTools which will provide dedicated customer
service and technical support.  MXTools provides a similar role for
Spamhaus, providing sales and support of the Spamhaus Datafeed
Service.  Please contact support at mxtools.com to provide feedback and
to indicate your level of interest in the continued use of SURBL.

Pricing information and registration can be found at:

 http://www.surbl.org/datafeed

As valued members of the SURBL community, we appreciate your support,
and ask for your help in this new licensing model.  It is SURBL's
desire that you'll continue to use the SURBL data and subscribe to the
SURBL SDS to support the SURBL project.

Sincerely,

Jeff Chan
William Stearns
Joe Wein
Raymond Dijkxhoorn
Andy Warner
SURBL
http://www.surbl.org/

Arnie Bjorklund
MXTools
arnieb at mxtools.com
http://www.mxtools.com/
1-866-931-9228


Reference Information:

SURBL usage policy: http://www.surbl.org/usage-policy.html
MXTools - Authorized SURBL Representatives: http://www.surbl.org/datafeed


SURBL Usage Policy

SURBL data are updated more than 240 times daily and are provided to
users worldwide via public DNS servers or via a data feed service.
The former (DNS query) is completely free and subject to certain usage
restrictions, while the latter (Data Feed) is a paid service.  The
revenue generated by the paid service ensures that SURBL can continue
to reliably provide the information that hundreds of millions of users
depend upon to keep their mailboxes and computers safe from messages
that are unsolicited, phishing, or malware.

Free Use:
For individual users, small charitable or non-profit organizations,
small businesses or any other organizations that have fewer than 1,000
users or that scan fewer than 250,000 messages per day in total, the
SURBL Free Query Service (FQS) is completely free and can be accessed
via a worldwide network of servers.  This network of servers is
geographically diverse to ensure a very high level of responsiveness
and reliability.

Sponsored Use:
Any organization, including software developers, ISPs, or large
organizations that provide email filtering (either as hardware,
software or services, individually or as a combined offering) of 1,000
or more users SHOULD NOT be using the SURBL FQS.  Instead they need to
sign up for the Sponsored Data Service (SDS). SDS was developed to
meet the professional needs of organizations and email technology
providers who have a large number of mail messages to scan.  As such
it is far more efficient to conduct these scans against a local copy
of the SURBL data.  The SDS data are provided using an rsync feed that
automatically updates the content with new additions.  The SDS
subscription fee includes unlimited access to our technical support
team.

SURBL monitors the use of the FQS to ensure that heavy users are not
abusing FQS, which is reserved for use by small organizations and
individual end users.
________________________________________
SURBL Usage Policy effective 10/1/08