Domain Assurance by Return Path

As often happens during MAAWG, email companies are announcing new products. One of the interesting ones is the new Domain Assurance product from Return Path.

Domain Assurance […] first audit[s] a company’s email streams to be sure authentication has been properly implemented. Then, the company’s domains are added to a registry. Participating ISPs can check the registry and block any unauthenticated emails coming from the domains found there. Return Path provides on-going checks for authentication accuracy and alerts participating companies any time their brand is phished or spoofed.

While this type of authentication won’t solve phishing, it is a tool to help protect end users from malicious mail.

HTML in email
My ISP might get blacklisted

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Goodmail sued for patent infringement

Late last week RPost sued Goodmail for infringing two patents. One patent authenticates content and delivery of documents. The second verifies the message was received by the recipient.
Patent #6,182,219: Apparatus and method for authenticating the dispatch and contents of documents.

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DKIM implementation survey: prelim results

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The ESP survey had 45 respondents. 30% of those sent more than 15 million emails a month.
Of all the respondents: 40% are signing with Domain Keys, 51.1% are signing with DKIM.
Of all respondents: 79.5% are signing with Domain Keys and 78.8% are signing with DKIM to access services (whitelists or FBLs) provided by the ISPs.
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Who can you trust?

I’ve been recently dealing with a client who is looking at implementing authentication on their domains. He’s done a lot of background research into the schemes and has a relatively firm grasp on the issue. At this point we’re working out what policies he wants to set and how to correctly implement those policies.
His questions were well informed for the most part. A few of them were completely out of left field, so I asked him for some of his references. One of those references was the EEC Email Authentication Whitepaper.
My client was doing the best he could to inform himself and relies on industry groups like the EEC to provide him with accurate information. In this case, their information was incomplete and incorrect.
We all have our perspectives and biases (yes, even me!) but there are objective facts that can be independently verified. For instance, the EEC Authentication whitepaper claimed that Yahoo requires DKIM signing for access to their whitelist program. This is incorrect, a sender does not have to sign with DKIM in order to apply for the Yahoo whitelist program. A bulk sender does have to sign with DKIM for a Y! FBL, but ISPs are given access to an IP based FBL by Yahoo. I am shocked that none of the experts that contributed to the document caught that error.
Independent verification is one reason I publish the Delivery Wiki. It’s a resource for everyone and a way to share my knowledge and thought processes. But other experts can “check my work” as it were and provide corrections if my information is outdated or faulty. All too often, senders end up blaming delivery problems on evil spirits, or using “dear” in the subject line or using too much pink in the design.
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