Spam Resource: All Things Deliverability

In short, spamtraps are bad addresses that you don’t want on your list. They’re old email addresses that haven’t been used for real people for a long time, or addresses that are put out to ensnare bad guys who are obtaining addresses in ways other than opt-in. If you have spa…

Among other things, I run the abuse desk for a large service provider with lots of clients. We get a handful of complaints a day. For example, over the past three days, we’ve received about sixteen complaints. And about two hundred spams. The “fun” part of our job (for variou…

Over on CIO Magazine's website, capable jounalist Esther Schindler posted an interesting article on the topic of spam defined, and how that definition has been changing over the years. The spark that led to her writing this came from a discussion on an anti-spam mailing li…

Have you ever received a bounce message that says “We do not relay” or “Mail loops back to myself”? Wondering what that means? I get this question often enough, that I thought it would be useful to break it down for you here. Both of these error messages mean that the site yo…

The US Federal Anti-Spam law (CAN-SPAM) has been in effect for just over three years now, yet I still get questions about it constantly. Here’s a quick roundup of links to resources relating to the CAN-SPAM act: My take on the law, from 2004 . What’s written here still holds t…

5/22/2007 Update: Some of this information is out of date. Please click here for my latest thoughts on Spamcop and the Spamcop SCBL. Recently, while doing a bit of research to find other opinions on blacklists, I ran across this seemingly random anti-blacklist blog post . He…

It's time for a Friday night funny. Remember this video of Scott Richter on the Daily Show, from back in 2004? Well, check this out. I was doing a bit a Googling today, and I ran across this article on Mediadpost.com, from shortly after that interview, where Scott talk…

Remember the famous internet rumor that made the rounds in 2006: “ AOL is trying to tax your email, write in now! ” Was it a rumor? Let’s take a look how things have shaped up, since that hit the internet. One year ago, Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation “ blo…

What is it? Backscatter is a certain kind of mail you receive that you didn't ask to receive. If you've ever received a “Your mail could not be delivered” bounce notification, a “Your mail contained a virus” notice, or a request to confirm your signup request for a mai…

Joe Jared used to run an open-relay blacklist called Osirusoft. I respected what Joe’s intent was, though I was of the opinion that Joe ran things unwisely. Both of these things I mentioned way back in 2001, when an SF Gate Article slammed Joe (and blacklisting in general). …

As I often say, listen to as many sources of information as possible, and learn as much as you can from all of them. Don't be afraid to search for a second or third opinion on how to handle a deliverability problem or list management issue. To that end, it's worth ch…

The SPEWS blacklist seems to have gone AWOL. A lot of people haven't realized this, and still believe they're being impacted by way of being listed on SPEWS. Over on my other site at dnsbl.com , I've posted two new articles that aim to help people dealing with this …

2022 Update: Long after this was published (way back in 2007), AOL and Yahoo have merged. The resulting platform is Yahoo Mail; so if you're having trouble delivering mail to AOL mailboxes today, this more modern guide to AOL/Yahoo deliverability is probably where you'…

(Note: David Hutchens contacted me today, looking for access to the Story of "Nadine" website. I sent him an email reply, which bounced. Gotta love those aggressive spam filters. I don't know any other way to contact him, so I figured I'd post about it here.)…

This isn’t the first time he’s run into legal issues over advertising. As I mentioned before , he’s had to settle with both Microsoft and the State of New York regarding allegations relating to spam. This time around, Richter, CEO of MediaBreakaway, (previously known as …

I have thirty-five domains registered with various administrative/technical contact addresses. I also have a bunch of other email addresses that I used to use for posting to discussion groups, old addresses that used to be on business cards and websites, etc. I even have some…

SMTP used to have a command called VRFY which allowed you to verify whether or not an address was valid. RFC 2505 talks about how spammer abuse makes both VRFY and the EXPN command pretty much worthless nowadays: 2.11. SMTP VRFY and EXPN Both SMTP VRFY and EXPN provide…

JC Writes: " I just discovered that SBC/AT&T is refusing mail going from me. Most kindly, I submit to you sir, that I have never, ever spammed, and my domain name, is older than when you started your good vigilance. I am though at your mercy. I am a poor computer con…

Below find the full text of the US “CAN-SPAM” Federal Anti-Spam law, courtesy of Al Iverson's spamresource.com . For a PDF copy, click here . To read my 2004 overview of the law, click here . S.877 CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as …