Should non ISP email accounts be blocked from registration?

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

Many webmasters block non ISP (yahoo, hotmail, freemail, etc.) email accounts from registrationn as they can easily be gotten and there is no recourse (well, it's alot harder) for abuse. Now that Yahoo is offering web hosting, what is your opinion on Yahoo email id's?

Site Admin Joined: Jun 04, 2004 Posts: 6437

The websites hosted by Yahoo shouldn't have Yahoo email addresses, and, since @yahoo.com addresses are still free, I'll continue to block them on the few sites (1) where I block free email.

Client Joined: Apr 10, 2004 Posts: 649 Location: UK

I was also wondering about this as here in the UK BT (our main telephone service provider) are now amalgamated with Yahoo, which means a lot of people are going to have yahoo email addresses.

If I implement this on my site, then I'll have to edit out yahoo but keep the others in the script.

To be truthful the only hassle I've had in the past has been from peoplel using Yahoo email rather than Hotmail though.

Hmmmm......... difficult one.

I guess what would be easier is to have some kind of software either on your computer or installed in your Nuke site or even Sentinel where you can trace email addresses.

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 12:25 pm

Another reason to complain to BT about using Yahoo for email.

Seems pretty cheap of them not to at least force yahoo to establish a domain name for paying BT customers (like @bt.yahoo.com).

I would think the more that people complain about Yahoo restrictions established by a very large part of the Internet community, the more likely it is that BT would change their practices.

It seems even more strange that a company the size of BT that charges for services is too cheap to enable mail servers, but I guess since I'm not a BT customer, it's not my place to complain.

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 3:18 pm

I only use them for the phone service, and that's only because they have the monopoly. I use AOHell for my net connection (dialup as have to wait another 12mths for Broadband to get here in the sticks).

I agree with you though.

BT will never change.

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 3:47 pm

Well, it's like we have always said about the Bell Companies.... The only difference between Ma Bell and your lover is.... 10 years down the road, Ma Bell will still suck.

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 4:37 pm

I think an admin area to add/remove non acceptable domains for registrations would be great. Myself I wouldn't get rid of most of em. I respect peoples desire to reduce spam and all that. But it would be a powerful tool when the issue comes up with specific domains. One step farther to check if the ip is listed with some of the better blackhole/spamhaus registeries would be even cooler.

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 4:43 pm

I'm in the process of updating my banned domain names in forums admin right now, but I'm also wondering how that will affect performance if at all at any point in normal operations including registration. I've added literally hundreds of freemail domains now and the list is just getting longer (And to think I haven't even touched much on europe yet.) I just checked and I'm up to 780 banned domain names.

I suspect others might be interested in the list once completed, as it sure as heck would be easier to add this thing in as a file in Myphpadmin versus typing them in one at a time like I'm doing now!

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 5:07 pm

Yeah the performance thing is exactly why I was thinking a seperate function only linked to registrations not the whole site.

Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 4:03 am

64bitguy wrote:

I'm in the process of updating my banned domain names in forums admin right now, but I'm also wondering how that will affect performance if at all at any point in normal operations including registration. I've added literally hundreds of freemail domains now and the list is just getting longer (And to think I haven't even touched much on europe yet.) I just checked and I'm up to 780 banned domain names.

I suspect others might be interested in the list once completed, as it sure as heck would be easier to add this thing in as a file in Myphpadmin versus typing them in one at a time like I'm doing now!

64bitguy, concerning what you posted above how does it affect the code you said you use in the post you made here: http://www.ravenphpscripts.com/postp19516.html#19516

I am getting ready to edit my registration so that Yahoo.com, Hotmail.com and possibly even Gmail.com accounts are prohibited from being used.....

And this next part is for anyone to answer (not aimed specifically at 64bitguy).....the initial page that people get for registration, where can I edit the text on that page? Which page is that? I don't necessarily want to edit the data collected, I simply want to edit the text on the page....thank you in advance.

registered · Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 4:54 am

You can play with the text in:
/modules/Your_Account/language/lang-xxxxxx.php

Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 7:46 am

Quote:

64bitguy, concerning what you posted above how does it affect the code you said you use in the post you made here: http://www.ravenphpscripts.com/postp19516.html#19516

Well, if you use that solution, it takes a lot more typing to do them one by one.

I'm using both solutions at this time (the direct edit of the .php file being to a much less extent). The forums solution seems to take fewer keystrokes for sure; however, I am pondering how having over several hundred banned domains will affect performance. So far, it hasn't... but you've got to wonder.

And yes, I've typed in HUNDREDS of freemail domains! Again, I suspect that I'll be selling that list at some point, just given the number of hours invested in finding and typing in those domains. I figure being able to simply import the list into your database should be worth something!

Very Happy