" Is there anything wrong with collecting business cards and selling the list? " -- Ian Cooper, president of new business development for EmailAppenders. Yes, Ian, ther…
If you're mad about how something is run at your school, is it OK to spam 391 people complaining about it? If the school is Michigan State, the answer is no . (And it's a…
Zoominfo -- a company that has created some sort of business contact database where you (you probably being "spammer") can buy lists of email addresses. Ken Magill talk…
John Levine reports on yet another example of spam received from the servers of spam filtering service provider Postini.
Word on the street is, if you're running an MTA that utilizes pipelining aggressively, you're probably having trouble sending email to Gmail right now. Here's an ex…
Quick Link: Looks like Backscatter , the annoyance of bounces you receive in response to something somebody else sent (usually spam), has finally made its way into the public ey…
Over here, email marketer Dylan Boyd talks about the the DMA's "launch" of an email opt-out site. What, you mean, eMPS? That thing that has been around since at le…
From the NY Times: The Federal Trade Commission won a preliminary legal victory against what it called one of the largest spam gangs on the Internet, getting an Illinois distric…
____ sent me an email today. ____ "would like feedback on my recent order." My recent order. The one I placed....in February. At first I thought it was spam. I didn…
A few weeks ago, I got spam from some wine store I had never heard of: Randolph Wine Cellars. Located in Chicago, it looks like a neat place, from their website. Except for one p…
Over on DNSBL Resource, I posted a quick rant and link to the DNSBL best practice draft document . This BCP ought to be required reading for any current or future blacklist opera…
Are you looking to buy a list? There’s no faster path to being identified as a spammer. If you’re looking to damage your ability to send mail, or if you’re looking to damage your…
Celso writes, "Can you please help me verify that my IP addresses are not on any blocklist?" No, I cannot, Celso. And here's why: It doesn't matter. You'r…
Hey, there’s been a lot of news floating around out there about how we’re all doomed to suffer from more spam because the conviction of Jeremy Jaynes (aka Gaven Stubberfield) for…
My favorite email/spam-related blog, Box of Meat , points us toward SpamBLR , a site that takes spam subject lines and uses them for inspiration for funny and strange photo-monta…
Read all about it: Translation: Though Davidson's end was shocking, that a spammer would resort to violence was not. There are a lot of Eddie Davidsons out there, and Linfor…
Ken Magill (or shall I say, Mr. Poopyhead) makes a funny, yet very insightful point, in his recent article about an email he recently received from the Obama campaign. His artic…
According to Justin Mason, domain registrar (and email/web hoster) Godaddy is misusing the Spamhaus PBL: Using it as a URL filter. This is where you convert a URL hostname to its…
Hey, what? Did I really just read that? An email appender sending out a press release about how to combat spam? Wait...the company name sounds familiar. Is it the company Ken…
Somebody just asked me what I mean when I say "sender." I often refer to senders in contexts like this: A good sender should always do X. Somebody who does Y will alway…
Dylan at email service provider eROI points out that Pizza Hut's email sign up process is substandard : You have to opt-in to receive emails just to order a pizza online. T…
The Consumerist headline says it all: Pizza Hut Sends Unsolicited Email To Apologize For Sending Unsolicited Email Or does it? Let's talk it through. Look, I can see somet…
ReturnPath has purchased Habeas, according to all of the industry sources in the world, all of whom have sent me separate emails giving me a heads up about the acquisition. Let …
Ever wondered what the sending reputation was for your favorite presidential candidate? Here's the IP addresses and Sender Score ranking for the last three mailings I'v…
Terry Zink reports on the most recent ball of spam that he (and most of us) have been receiving: Fake news alerts that claim to be from CNN .
Mark Brownlow talks about Yahoo's take on subscriber engagement here . After you read that, check out Mark's more generalized theory on what ISPs consider when determinin…
Hey, fellow anti-spammers: "Re-Engagement Strategy" is what email service providers or deliverability people would call a reconfirmation email or a permission pass . D…
Ken says what I'm thinking , as is often the case. Spam bad? Yup. Davidson a scumbag? Yup. Happy about a murder suicide? Nope. Happy about just the suicide? Nope, never. Al…
Here's a tale from Matt Blumberg , CEO of ReturnPath, on how confirmed opt-in, aka double opt-in, isn't necessarily enough to 100% prevent spam complaints. Why? Because t…
Backscatter has long annoyed me . But, I've been even more annoyed at the lack of comprehensive information online explaining exactly what backscatter is, and why it sucks. W…
I was reading a mailing list today, as I often do. Some random guy, nobody I know, he posted a request for help. He said, more or less: "Hey, blacklist XYZ has listed my do…
Ed Falk on E360 dropping lawsuits with prejudice (meaning E360 cannot refile). Mickey points out that E360 reached a settlement agreement with Mark Ferguson but not with the o…
Mickey Chandler asks, " Do you want to fund the lawsuit? " Meaning, if you're splitting the hair very thin to make the case that what you're doing *must* be leg…
Terry Zink blogs about the necessity of a "Report Moron" button . Ha.
Dylan from email service provider eROI talks about how he got an offer to sign up for services from a competing email service provider. And, as Dylan puts it, "they are us…
Check out this very old presentation about the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) , from October, 2000. I had already left MAPS at that point, but apparently, my personal bran…
Insight on the topic (and thoughts on industry leadership issues) from Ken Magill and Laura Atkins .
Ben at MailChimp takes us through it : Postini causes wanted mail to not be delivered. MailChimp tries to work with Postini. Postini rather lamely says, "Yeah, they're k…
Remember James Gordon? The guy who sued Virtumundo, and lost? If you don't remember, here's some history: Ken Magill laughs at Gordon here . Mickey Chandler talks about i…
Might I recommend you check out J.D. Falk's " Box of Meat " blog? It has rapidly become one of my favorites, the blog I check first when it's time to start read…
Laura Atkins of Word to the Wise covers the topic capably , covering both sides of the ISP/blacklist filtering coin. Here’s my take on it, based on my experiences working both as…
It's time for a friendly reminder: It's not cool to steal content from somebody else's blog to put on your own. If you're quoting 98% of somebody else's blog…
"You gotta fight! For your right! To connnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnntact!" -- Beastie Boys (sort of) Regarding the ongoing saga of E360 versus the Entire Universe, it look…
E360 (who is also fighting Spamhaus in court) just saw their lawsuit against Comcast laughed out of court. The judge in this case really seems to be savvy on the issues involved…
Over on her blog, Laura Atkins of Word to the Wise shares eleven timely tips on dealing with ISPs when you're blocked. A lot of it is common sense, but then again ... I kno…
