Yes, it responds nicely to ICMP.
But as I understand it if Reverse DNS (rDNS) is not configured properly by their upstream ISP any email server that performs a Reverse DNS check in incoming messages will reject those incoming messages. Large providers usually have this check enabled (AOl, Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc..) and increasingly Enterprise servers are doing the same.
So, when I go to AOL and use their tool to do a rDNS lookup, I get something other than the source domain (snowestonline.com).
It's very possible there is something well beyond my DNS understanding occurring here (i.e. some funky email launching service, etc..), but if that's the case it's easily beyond my understanding of DNS & rDNS.
;-)
MD.
NOTE: mail.snowestonline.com is not the host I suspected it to be, but the concept still stand for most environments. ;-)