24 years and counting: Where does the time go?


Spam Resource turns 24 this year. 

I started writing about email in 2001, mostly because I was spending my days fighting spam, running and/or wrestling with blocklists, and then, later, trying to figure out why some mail got delivered and some didn't. Two decades (and then some) onward from there, and I'm still at it. And while I've moved on from complaining about Spamcop, I can still look back at it all now and see that a lot of other things that I've talked about over the years are still important today.

A few themes pop up again and again in the archives.

Blocklists. In the early days, DNSBLs were the center of the universe. I've covered Spamhaus, SORBS, MAPS, and plenty of others. It's been sad to see so many blocklists hang things up, but fun to watch the evolution of others -- like, for example, Spamhaus's evolution from "just another DNSBL" to becoming a full-fledged modern set of security tools that help keep the internet safer for the rest of us.

Permission and opt-in. One of the oldest arguments in email is still raging: do you need permission to send? (I have an opinion about that. See if you can guess what it is.) And double opt-in: I've been writing about it since at least 2003. People argued with me about it then, and people still argue with me now. I still think it's important to talk about today, though.

Engagement as the cornerstone of deliverability-boosting best practices. First mention: 2008. Later mentions: Too many to count, but here's an important one, what does it actually mean to improve deliverability by focusing on engagement?

Authentication. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC have all had their day in the spotlight here. In 2012, I first wrote about DMARC, trying to help people make sense of this crazy new policy standard. Most recently, I've tracked Google's updates to DMARC reporting and documented how authentication reshaped deliverability, being a key component of email sender requirements.

Spamtraps and myths. First talk of spamtraps? 2007. Myths? I'm fond of my CAN-SPAM myth series from 2010. It still gets traffic, and some people still think CAN-SPAM doesn't apply to them. Another highlight? Rebutting a security researcher who, in 2011, wanted us to think that DKIM email authentication is "evil." No. Just....no. Trust me, DKIM is imperfect and every new spec brings with it one or more unintended consequences (ahem...replay), but evil? No. It is, instead, an important underpinning of modern domain reputation.

The next wave. More recently, A.I. has started creeping into the conversation. I've blogged this year about the impact of A.I. on deliverability and spam fighting, and the ways that it can all go wrong, but it's not the first time I've talked about the future -- and also, not the first time I've tried to link to other important voices and their takes on the future, like Yahoo's Marcel Becker in 2018, and my good friend Jennifer Nespola Lantz in 2024, sharing their own thoughts on the future of email.

And then there's Fun Friday. Not everything here has been dry technical detail. Every now and again I've tried to post something a little bit lighter, whether it be songs, comedy bits, oddball videos, etc. Sharing links to the legal life of the poop emoji, Halloween memes, vegan SPAM (?!), and lots of music video clips. Those posts were a reminder that email deliverability might be serious business, but it's okay to laugh on Fridays. I don't know about you, but I need a break from the heavy stuff here and there, so that's why I share those.

The blog has evolved, and what I talk about has evolved. But within that past twenty four years, some things didn't change. The baseline advice has been the same all along the way: respect permission, respect the inbox, respect the subscriber. Blocklists come and go, mailbox providers add new filtering and categorization, and DMARC reporting blurs the line between email security and deliverability, but still, there's a core and it remains the same.

And: thank you. Thanks for reading, whether you've been here since 2001 or you just found the site last week. I appreciate each and every one of you, and especially those of you who have taken one or more opportunities to share your thoughts, feedback, and even guest posts, along the way.

(And you know, it's not too late to sign up for my email newsletter!)
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