Email Blogs
I did a class at M3AAWG teaching the basic mechanics of sending an email, both really by hand using dig and netcat, and using SWAKS. No slides, but if you’re interested in the script I’ve posted a very rough copy of my working notes here.
DELIVTERMS: The (almost) weekly series here on Spam Resource that defines deliverability terminology. Today, I’m going to talk about the term Postmaster Site.What is a Postmaster Site? A Postmaster Site (or Page) is a help page or helpful website published by an internet service provider (ISP) or mailbox provider (MBP) that is meant to assist people sending mail to subscribers of that ISP/MBP. If you’re sending mail to Yahoo and that mail gets blocked, the bounce message likely contains a link to specific bounce information that is hosted on Yahoo’s Postmaster Site (or as they like to call it, the Y! Senders Hub).These kind of things are/were called Postmaster Pages (or Sites). Why? Because, “in computers and technology, a postmaster is the administrator of a mail server,” and thus, in many cases, a person dealing with email deliverability issues (especially before the term deliverability was coined) would often be considered an
Today’s guest post is from deliverability expert Alison Gootee. She writes:I’m here to offer some empathy. If you’re experiencing difficulties delivering to Microsoft domains like Hotmail, Live, MSN, and Outlook, you’re not alone! Many industry veterans have reported similar struggles in their efforts to deliver even the best and most desired mail to Microsoft users in recent weeks. People with years (and decades) of experience are reporting longer remediation processes, requests going unanswered, and details being ignored. Microsoft has been in the game for a long time now, so I picture their mail filtering processes as a Rube Goldberg machine made of old rules, new patches, and conflicting priorities, held together by some Dunkaroos crumbs & Fruitopia that have been there since Microsoft bought Hotmail in 1996 (90s snacks were the best, you can’t change my mind). They’re fine with the way things work, though. It’s Microsoft’s world and we’re
It’s been a few years since we’ve actually made it to a MAAWG. We missed much of 2018 and 2019 due to our international move. Then 2020 San Francisco conflicted with a personal engagement. Then, well, pandemic hit and it’s been virtual and then we were moving and … wow, it’s been busy! We did make it to London, though, and have started reconnecting with colleagues new and old. We also got a chance to take a trip down the river over the weekend leading to a chance to get some pretty pictures. Blues and Whites Tower Bridge south tower. Look, Kids! Big Ben! London old and new After a day of touristing, we’re now buckling down to do some hard work. Steve’s doing a training session this afternoon and I’m moderating a panel tomorrow. I’m so excited to be back in person learning from my colleagues. Don’t forget to
An email feedback loop (aka ISP feedback loop or complaint feedback loop) is a spam reporting mechanism implement by an internet service provider (ISP) or mailbox provider (MBP) that allows spam complaints to flow back to the sender or sender’s email platform. Those forwarded “report spam” notifications allow the sender or sending platform to unsubscribe those who complain and also to provide sender feedback to understand which clients, lists or campaigns are causing the highest number or percentage of spam complaints.ISPs and MBPs already collect and correlate spam complaint data for their own uses. When you click the “report spam” button in Gmail, or Outlook.com, Yahoo, or elsewhere, those services capture and log your complaint, to feed into their internal spam filtering systems, to generate reputation-related metrics about the sender. Senders who generate more spam complaints are more likely to find themselves blocked, or to find their mail relegated to the spam…
Julia Evans aka b0rk is somebody smart that I follow on Twitter. She created this super cool tool that I’ve linked to on social media before, called Mess with DNS, providing you with a safe space to learn about DNS by doing — letting you set up DNS records under a test domain she’s got set up — so you can truly “mess with DNS” without breaking anything for your own (or your employer’s) domain.And now she’s back with something new and super cool — a 28-page guide (zine) called “How DNS Works!” Guess what it explains? Yep, how DNS works. Lots and lots of detail here, very useful for somebody who wants to better understand how the domain name service actually works. And when you’ve got the guide in hand (available for a modest fee from her zines website), then head on over to “Mess with DNS” and practice…
Last week I talked about one-click unsubscribe and why I don’t think it’s a great process. Basically, my concern is bot clicks. I’ve seen it happen too many times — email security software will scan an email message body and follow all the links in the message. This triggers a one click unsub and can result in people falling off of an email list. Does it happen in the millions? Possibly not, but when it happens to the client when trying to send to themselves, and suddenly their CEO or CMO is mad that messages are no longer be received, it results in a client angry at a CRM or ESP platform. It’s pain, and it’s self-inflicted pain, and a smart sending platform should try to prevent this pain.TL;DR? One click should really be two click. Go read my prior “hot take” for more details.Anyway, a couple of ISP/MBP (mailbox…
I don’t send a lot of spam complaints generally. Mostly I block and move on. There are some companies, though, that I offer the professional courtesy of sending a complaint or a report to their abuse@ address. Former clients, friends and colleagues generally get that courtesy. The number of ESPs that completely fail to take any action is disappointing. Too many of them can’t even manage the simple courtesy of removing addresses. A few don’t even process bounces correctly and continue to send mail even when getting a spam block or 550 user unknown. Sometimes I’ll reach out to folks who I know work at particular ESPs, although that’s less common these days as everyone seems to be moving companies and I can’t keep track. Often I get an invite to “always send me complaints directly.” That … is not a solution, people. Expecting people who are reporting spam to…
Another day, another ESP telling a client to publish a SPF include for the wrong domain. It shouldn’t annoy me, really. It’s mostly harmless and it’s just an extra DNS look up for most companies. Heck, we followed Mailchimp’s advice and added their include to our bare root domain and it’s not really a huge deal for companies with only a couple SaaS providers. Still, it’s an incorrect recommendation and it does cause problems for some senders who are using multiple SaaS providers and Google. Both Steve and I have written different posts about SPF over the years. In fact, the Authenticating with SPF: -all or ~all post is the most visited post on the blog. I’ve even written almost this same post, pointing out that a lot of ESPs have bad recommendations for SPF records. Steve’s written about the technical ins and outs of SPF records in DNS and…
Here’s your fun fact for today: Rapper Rick Ross has never had an email account. Finally, you can answer the question, “Was that email I just got that claimed to be from the famed hip hop artist known for Hustlin’ legit or not?”The more you know.