Wednesday 11th July 2007
I just tried sending an email from my GMail account but I got a response back pretty quick saying that delivery had failed; I was pretty certain the email address was valid.
Looking at the response in greater detail I noticed that it had failed because a relay somewhere along the chain had blocked the message coming from GMail; you can see why here.
Technical details of permanent failure: PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 16): 550-gmail.com is in the AHBL (rhsbl.ahbl.org). For more info see: 550-http://www.ahbl.org/tools/lookup.php?ip=gmail.com 550 gmail.com - trelane - Google GMail, relaying child pornography spam
According to the response that I got, it appears that GMail has somehow got itself on an abusive hosts lists for apparently “relaying child pornography spam”. Strange! Anybody else having this problem?
Whatever happened to “don’t be evil” 
July 11th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Yep, just had the same thing. I wonder if “550-gmail.com” is a different domain, but the filtering software is matching the “gmail.com” part with my email? How very annoying
July 11th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
OK I realise I misread the thingy there, and the 550 is the error code. Sorry, not enough coffee. Looks like someone got gmail.com on a blacklist
July 11th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
I just had two reports of the same thing, and my mail logs confirm it. The DSN sent to the original sender was quite a surprise!
July 11th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Same here, I am trying to contact Google about this. Hope it will be over soon, I use this address a lot.
Very annoying indeed
July 11th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Count me in as another legit gmail user who is inconvenienced by this mistake. I sure hope it gets fixed soon.
July 11th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
This page was the top hit when I googled to try to find out why people are teling me their mail (sent from gmail) is bouncing.
July 11th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Dito…very alarming at first but nice to see that I’m not the only one
July 11th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
One user who posted in the following in a google help group:
“You appear to be blocking all mail to GMail - this is a large reputable email provider, provided by Google serving thousands of customers. I would suggest that you ask GMail to rectify the issue, rather than blocking all GMail users. ”
They got the following response:
“Google’s Gmail was involved in sending solicitations (SPAM) for Child Pornography sites on 7/10. Despite repeated attempts to contact them the spam as ongoing as of 2200 hours EST. Normally I don’t call a Service Provider to inform them they have a spam problem, however in this case I called 2 departments within Google who would not transfer me to abuse, and the e-mails they have sent to the abuse people have not gotten responses. Normally I wouldn’t block a provider the size of gmail except in the case of solicitation for Child Pornography. Because of the unfortunate nature of the SPAM, and the egregious inability of Google to return an e-mail, or a phone call, we have listed Google’s Gmail service until such time as we do get a return contact.”
Source:
http://groups.google.com/group/google-mail-problem-solving-uk/browse_thread/thread/da6f9e4eebbe050b/58b5b9fa4914c80a?lnk=st&q=Google%27s+Gmail+was+involved+in+sending+solicitations+(+SPAM)+for+Child+Pornography+sites+on+7%2F10&rnum=1#58b5b9fa4914c80aail%2C+relaying&rnum=1#93346d5d8c24f0e1
July 11th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
I just tried sending my friend email from my gmail and it worked fine yesterday but today, I’m affiliated with child porn. The shame!
July 12th, 2007 at 12:39 am
Ditto… I can’t send any email right now via gmail. All of a sudden I’m a pedophile. Crazy!
July 12th, 2007 at 3:45 am
Well my sons gmail was blocked but mine was working fin. I’m thinking it could be related to keywords used by specific spammers in their email or su bjects and match the email been blocked..
If all of gmail is been blocked by a major email passthrough than there is a law suit in the waiting from google.
I doubt he whe ever is willing to go with that.
July 12th, 2007 at 5:50 am
I can sent emails to certain people, but other people I get blocked returned. I am able to send e-mails to AOL.com. I think it’s just if the person you want to e-mail uses a block list from www.ahbl.org then you’re SOL.
July 12th, 2007 at 8:12 am
I, too, can send emails to certain people. I just tried sending my original email - 24 hours later - and it’s still being blocked.
July 12th, 2007 at 10:36 am
I just sent an email to a friend of mine who works at Google. He has logged it as an issue so they are looking at it; hopefully, it won’t be too long now before it’s fixed.
July 12th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
i had the same f…ing problem what’s going on it is really annoying
July 12th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
I am contancting mail admins and asking them to remove ahbl - that list is a joke.
July 12th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Yeah, I’m starting to get severe pushback from my users. I can maintain this for another few days, but as of Monday, I’ll have to stop using the AHBL until this situation resolves itself…
– Jay
July 12th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
It seems like things are working for me again now. No more “trelane - Google GMail, relaying child pornography spam” errors.
July 13th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Yep. Working for me now too; hopefully, this will be the end of it.
July 13th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
OK for me too now
July 13th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Gmail is working for me too, now