rlparker -

Michael pointed me to this thread so that I could provide a little clarification on this stuff...

I'm not sure what the wiki edit is about, but as it is now we look at (and limit) email usage on a per-user basis. I do not know of any plans to lump multiple users all together and institute a throttle limit for them as a whole - and DreamHost Abuse are the ones who would be enforcing those limits, so we'd probably be in on it. :)

Regarding the limits in general:

Most people never bump up against those limits, and those who do can contact us, explain their situation/needs, and then potentially have their limit increased. If they are using bulk email in any way we will likely need to independently verify that they are fully compliant with our anti-spam policies before doing so.

That said, this multiple user thing shouldn't be seen as a loophole. We've actually had people try to round-robin their email output through multiple accounts on the same server in order to avoid getting "caught" trying to send large amounts of bulk email. While this will likely work for a bit, eventually we will notice and such abuse will likely result in our tightening things up or adding restrictions for everyone. It's in everyone's best interests not to monopolize server resources more than necessary.

And no, its clear that you're not trying to game the system - I'm mostly mentioning that for anyone who runs into this thread down the road and gets some wild ideas... :)

Anyhow, if you have multiple distinct web sites with different mail needs, if you put them all under different user accounts they will be relatively isolated and have their own limits. I recommend doing this anyhow as it limits the potential damage should an insecure script get exploited, a password sniffed, etc. It also lessens the amount of material to sift through and clear when securing such an account.

While there is some benefit to having a bunch of domains under the same login when it comes to convenience, I personally prefer the added security of keeping them separate. To each their own, though!

- Jeff @ DreamHost Abuse