Spam Resource
Timely. Here is “Everything you need to know about BIMI and validated mark certificates, how they increase brand trust, and which companies have adopted them,” courtesy of World Trademark Review. This analysis, authored by Jeremy Speres, partner at Spoor & Fisher, provides great detail into BIMI/VMC state and status and what senders need to know to be able to move forward with their own BIMI plans. I learned a lot from reading this and I think you will, too![ H/T: Brian Westnedge from Red Sift ]
Thanks to William Gallagher from Apple Insider for letting us know that Apple has launched the ability to configure a custom email domain with iCloud Mail. It’s explicitly noted as being in beta, and it sounds like the process is a bit buggy so far, but they’ll get it worked out, and I have a feeling that this could be the start of something big. Click on through to read more.
I’m not 100% sure of the exact day that I first posted to this blog, but based on what I can find in my own notes and archives, I probably published my first post on August 26, 2001. So, I’m going to call that the birthdate of Spam Resource, and that means that today is the twentieth anniversary of Spam Resource.(Spam Resource circa 2001-2003)Wow, it’s been a heck of a ride. I guess that time flies when you’re … sitting still, quietly blogging about spam and email.Though Blogger did technically exist in 2001, Spam Resource wasn’t moved to the Blogger platform until 2006. Prior to that move, it was all hand-coded HTML flat files with lots of tables. For a period, it was even an online software store — my employer at the time held a contest to try to drive extra online software sales — and I was one of the…
Need a fake SMTP server for testing? Chadwan Pawar of PostBox Services suggests Mailhog. It’s an open source SMTP server that captures all mail and gives you a visual dashboard showing you what was received. Much fancier than /dev/null (but that can come in handy sometimes, too).Read more about it over on PostBoxServices and here’s a link to the Mailhog project on Github.
The question, “Why does Microsoft hate me?” is something I hear a lot lately. I’m not sure Microsoft actually hates any of you, but it’s clear that many senders are frustrated with how difficult it seems to be to be able to get mail delivered to Microsoft OLC (Hotmail/Outlook.com) domains. Yes, I do think Microsoft OLC is the consumer webmail or ISP mail provider with the quickest blocking trigger finger out there, and yes, it sometimes seems to be unfair. But it’s something that we all have to deal with, so let’s all put on our grown up pants and work together to deal with it.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a BIMI status update, and things are changing! Things are standardizing! Things are getting good. So, let’s get right to it…
Verifying email addresses through methods akin to what we now think of as confirmed opt-in (COI) or (DOI) isn’t a new thing. Mailing list software Majordomo added support for verifying new signups way back in 1996. I don’t remember exactly when it became common to validate that opt-in via an email click, but I remember building email click tracking — sending out a unique indicator per subscriber and taking action or updating a status — for my own purposes way back in late 1997 as part of a spam filtering system I had built at the time. Then in 1998 I started a COI/DOI email list for my friend’s jazz club using custom code (not captured by the Internet Archive until 2001). So, it’s been done before.
Are you looking for an open source sending MTA solution?For big senders, commercial MTA platforms like PowerMTA or MailerQ are usually the way to go. But for those of you looking for an alternative, ZoneMTA might be something for you to check out.