Legitimate mail in spamfilters

It can be difficult and frustrating for a sender to understand they whys and wherefores of spam filtering. Clearly the sender is not spamming, so why is their mail getting caught in spam filters?
I have a client that goes through this frustration on rare occasions. They send well crafted, fun, engaging content that their users really want. They have a solid reputation at the ISPs and their inbox stats are always above 98%. Very, very occasionally, though, they will see some filtering difficulties at Postini. It’s sad for all of us because Postini doesn’t tell us enough about what they’re doing to understand what my client is doing to trigger the filters. They get frustrated because they don’t know what’s going wrong; I get frustrated because I can’t really help them, and I’m sure their recipients are frustrated because they don’t get their wanted mail.
Why do a lot of filter vendors not communicate back to listees? Because not all senders are like my clients. Some senders send mail that recipients can take or leave. If the newsletter shows up in their inbox they may read it. If the ad gets in front of their face, they may click through. But, if the mail doesn’t show up, they don’t care. They certainly aren’t going to look for the mail in their bulk folder. Other senders send mail that users really don’t want. It is, flat out, spam.
The thing is, all these senders describe themselves as legitimate email marketers. They harvest addresses, they purchase lists, they send mail to spamtraps, and they still don’t describe themselves as spammers. Some of them have even ended up in court for violating various anti-spam laws and they still claim they’re not spammers.
Senders are competing with spammers for bandwidth and resources at the ISPs, they’re competing for postmaster attention at the ISPs and they’re competing for eyeballs in crowded inboxes.
It’s the sheer volume of spam and the crafty evilness of spammers that drives the constant change and improvement in spamfilters. It’s tough to keep up with the spamfilters because they’re trying to keep up with the spammers. And the spammers are continually looking for new ways to exploit recipients.
It can be a challenge to send relevant, engaging email while dealing with spamfilters and ISPs. But that’s what makes this job so much fun.

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Marketing to businesses

“If you do stupid things, you’re going to get blocked,” says Jigsaw CEO Jim Fowler in an interview with Ken Magill earlier this week.
Jigsaw is a company that rewards members to input their valuable business contacts. Once the addresses are input into Jigsaw, they are sold to anyone who wants them. Jigsaw gets the money, the people providing information get… something, the people who provided business cards to Jigsaw members get spammed and the people who downloaded the lists get to deal with a delivery mess. Sounds like a lose for everyone but Jigsaw.
Except that now Jigsaw is listed on the SBL for spam support services. Well, that’s going to cause some business challenges, particularly given how many companies use the SBL as part of their filtering scheme.
It’s hard to think of a situation where I would appreciate someone I gave a business card to providing my information to a site that then turns around and lets anyone download it to send email to. I know, I know, there are a million companies out there I’ve never heard of that have The Product that will Solve All my Problems. But, really, I don’t want them in my work mailbox. The address I give out on my business cards is, for, y’know, people to contact me about what I’m selling or to contact me about things they’ve already purchased from me. That address is not for people to market to. I have other addresses for vendors, and even potential vendors, to contact me.
Jigsaw clearly facilitates spam to businesses by collecting email addresses and then selling them on. This is a drain on small businesses who now have inboxes full of valuable offers to wade through. Perhaps their stint on the SBL will make them reconsider their spam support services.
HT: Al

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What really is "spam" anyway?

A few days ago I was reading the attempt by e360 and Dave Linhardt to force Comcast to accept his mail and to stop people posting in the newsgroup news.admin.net-abuse.email from claiming he is a spammer. The bit that pops out at me in this complaint of his, is the fact that he believes that by complying with the minimal standards of the CAN-SPAM act, he is not spamming.
The problem with this claim is that CAN SPAM lists the minimal standards an email must meet in order to avoid prosecution. CAN SPAM does not define what is spam, it only defines the things senders must do in order to not be violating the act. There is no legal definition of spam or of what is not spam.
To add to the confusion there are a number of confusing and contradictory definitions of spam. Definitions people have used over the years include:

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Winning friends and removing blocks

I do a lot of negotiating with blocklists and ISPs on behalf of my clients and recently was dealing with two incidents. What made this so interesting to me was how differently the clients approached the negotiations.
In one case, a client had a spammer slip onto their system. As a result the client was added to the SBL. The client disconnected the customer, got their IP delisted from the SBL and all was good until the spammer managed to sweet talk the new abuse rep into turning his account back on. Predictably, he started spamming again and the SBL relisted the IP.
My client contacted me and asked me to intercede with Spamhaus. I received a detailed analysis of what happened, how it happened and how they were addressing the issue to prevent it happening in the future. I relayed the info to Spamhaus, the block was lifted and things are all back to normal.
Contrast that with another client dealing with widespread blocking due to a reputation problem. Their approach was to ask the blocking entity which clients they needed to disconnect in order to fix the problem. When the blocking entity responded, the customer disconnected the clients and considered the issue closed. They didn’t look at the underlying issues that caused the reputation problems, nor did they look at how they could prevent this in the future. They didn’t evaluate the customers they disconnected to identify where their processes failed.
The first client took responsibility for their problems, looked at the issues and resolved things without relying on Spamhaus to tell them how to fix things. Even though they had a problem, and is statistically going to have the occasional problem in the future, this interaction was very positive for them. Their reputation with the Spamhaus volunteers is improved because of their actions.
The second client didn’t do any of that. And the people they were dealing with at the blocking entity know it. Their reputation with the people behind the blocking entity was not improved by their actions.
These two clients are quite representative of what I’ve seen over the years. Some senders see blocking as a sign that somehow, somewhere there is a flaw in their process and a sign they need to figure out how to fix it. Others see blocking as an inconvenience. Their only involvement is finding out the minimum they need to do to get unblocked, doing it and then returning to business as usual. Unsurprisingly, the first type of client has a much better delivery rate than the second.

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