How to improve AOL delivery

DMNews interviewed Charles before he left AOL about the state of spam and the challenges for ISPs and how that affects senders. The article was published this week. In it he talks about

  • The botnet problem and what AOL is doing to combat it
  • How AOL monitors its users
  • What kinds of things AOL measures for mail, including email sources and volume
  • How AOL leaves some filtering to users through the ‘this is spam’ button
  • Authentication

All in all a good article and worth a read for someone interested in what goes on behind the scenes at AOL.

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