Back to Basics: Where does Spamhaus get off…
One of the more popular questions that come up deals with the use of DNSBLs[1] , especially Spamhaus’ lists, by ISPs[2] . The question usually goes something like this: Who are the operators of that list and what gives them the right to regulate commerce? Are they run by a government or something? A Brief History…
Who Drives DMARC?
Every time that someone comes up with a new way to talking about mail back channels it gets just a little more complex. First, we had SPF. That was a relatively easy thing. Add a text record to DNS that says where your mail is coming from and you’re set. You even had options to…
About that Gmail “Promotions” tab
It seems that a lot of people still misunderstand what the Gmail promotions tab is and does. How do I know this? Because I still get questions from time-to-time along the lines of “How do we get our mail out from the ‘Promotions’ tab and back into the inbox?” All that Google has done here…
Drafted for the wrong fight
My friend Al Iverson just wrote a new blog post: “SPF Still Matters in 2016”. One of the things that he said struck a chord with me: “‘But SPF is worthless,’ occasionally a spam fighter will cry.” It struck a chord with me because SPF wasn’t ever really intended to fight spam, per se. While there is…
So tell us how you REALLY feel
People will sometimes ask me why I hate the Lead Generation (lead gen) and Payday Loan industries. Ultimately, it’s because they have such deep problems that I don’t think that any self-respecting ESP should take them on as a client. This morning, I saw a press release outlining a settlement between a lead gen operation and…
When systems disagree
A co-worker recently brought to my attention an interesting problem which involves differing ideas concerning precedence between RFC5321 and RFC3463. The result of the issue is that mail systems may experience unneeded delay in delivering mail. What’s going on? Gmail is returning the following error for over quota accounts: “452 4.2.2 The email account that you tried…
Did you catch the death of Postini?
According to Google, all mail stopped flowing through Postini servers on June 15. Any Postini clients who had not made the transition by the end of May were supposed to have been forcibly transitioned then. Postini was a traditional troublespot when it came to deliverability. That shouldn’t be the case anymore. BibliographyPostini Transition to Google Apps,…
What happened to Compu-Finder?
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced today that they have issued their first penalty against someone for sending email in violation of Canada’s anti-spam law. The penalty is substantial (C$1.1 million, or roughly US$881,700 at today’s exchange rate), but isn’t anywhere near the C$40 million potential maximum penality. Still, the size of the penalty is…