Internet Service Providers Block Northwestern E-mail

Northwestern University Information Technology (NUIT) has discovered that NU e-mail users who redirect or forward their e-mail to specific Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may have experienced some occasional disruption. ISP's Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL and MSN recently began blocking redirected e-mail from northwestern.edu and its associated domains, including: kellogg.northwestern.edu, law.northwestern.edu, alumni.northwestern.edu, and md.northwestern.edu.

NUIT has been successful in having the ISPs temporarily suspend this practice; however, these ISPs may still block NU e-mail intermittently, at their discretion. This practice is occurring due to the large amount of 1) NU forwarded e-mails being bounced back from these ISP e-mail accounts that are either full or no longer active; and 2) general forwarded NU e-mails, including junk mail, that have caused the ISPs to erroneously define NU (and other universities) as a "spammer."

At this time, having your NU e-mail forwarded to one of these ISPs is considered unreliable. NUIT is working to resolve this problem as quickly as possible. To ensure that your NU redirected or forwarded e-mail is not blocked, NUIT recommends that you have your e-mail forwarded to a client-based e-mail, such as Eudora or Outlook. You can also access your NU e-mail online while away from the University via WebMail at <www.northwestern.edu/webmail/>.

Please remember that NU cannot guarantee delivery of every e-mail message that is forwarded to another e-mail address that you may use. We only redirect e-mail addressed to you; we cannot control its delivery. If you don't receive all the e-mail you expect, please ask your correspondents to resend the message, preferably directly to your primary account.

For addition questions, please contact email-accounts@northwestern.edu or the NUIT Support Center at 847-491-HELP (4357).