Scott Walker's got a list for you

Why does it seem like all politicians are spammers?

Want to spam everybody who signed up for emails from Wisconsin governor Scott Walker during his failed presidential bid? That'll cost you $10,500. Makes me wish I had signed up for his email list, so I could see what kind of junk he's allowing people to send through today.

Boy, that'd make me mad if I signed up for his email list and started getting random ads for unrelated things. I don't know about you, but I try not to give my email address out to people who plan to share, sell, or repurpose it after the fact.

What is phishing?

Not this kind of fishing.

Somebody asked me recently, what is phishing? Instead of re-inventing the wheel, allow me to link to a few of the resources already out there that explain what phishing is and why it is a problem.

What is phishing? From Wikipedia: "Phishing is the attempt to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money), often for malicious reasons, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication."

From Microsoft: "Phishing email messages, websites, and phone calls are designed to steal money." Included are examples of what a phishing scam in an email message might look like.

And here is more information from the FTC's Consumer Information site.

Outlook.com (Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail) Issues Today

I'm hearing from multiple sources that some mail to outlook.com / live.com / hotmail.com recipients is being delayed / deferred unexpectedly today.

ETA: Issues seem resolved. Not quite sure when they cleared up.

Yahoo, Gmail and Spam in the news

Yahoo and Gmail both hit the news this past weekend, and not for great reasons.

Protect Your Brand and Reputation

Today's guest post comes from deliverability consultant extraordinaire, my friend Josie Garcia. Take it away, Josie!

Did you know that senders are in control of many more reputation and vulnerability factors than ESPs?

Cisco PIX/ASA: Disable SMTP Fixup

Over on the Mailop list, a postmaster shared his tale of woe involving sending mail to a small set of recipients whose mail server is behind a Cisco PIX firewall.

Verizon.net moving to AOL

Some or all of verizon.net mailboxes are going to move to infrastructure hosted by AOL.

Google Postmaster Tools: Domain vs. IP address Data Thresholds

Today's guest post is from Brian Curry, Manager of Deliverability, for Merkle Inc.. Take it away, Brian!

Since July of 2015, Google rolled out a shiny new tool for the Deliverability community to poke around and nerd out. We all know Google hasn’t always been the most transparent to Senders, so while we play with our new Gmail toy, we start to notice small things that perhaps give us clues into Google’s mind.