ArchiveMarch 2011

Authentication and phishing

Yahoo announced today that they are releasing the Yahoo! Mail Anti-Phishing Platform (YMAP) that will help protect their users from phishing. They have a similar project in place for eBay and PayPal mail, but this will extend to a broader range of companies. [W]e’re beefing up Yahoo! Mail’s SpamGuard by adding more security measures that make it much harder for phishers to get to your mailbox...

Does your unsubscribe process work? Are you sure?

I stumbled across an interesting problem today. A company I bought something from a while back added me to their newsletter. They seem to be having trouble making sales this quarter, as they’ve gone from an occasional email every few weeks to bombarding me with increasingly desperate offers in the past week or two. So I do what most recipients do in that situation (well, the ones who...

Just give it up already

I have a mail system totally separate from my inbox to use when I’m testing signup forms. Some of them are client, some of them are vendors my clients are thinking about using. In any case, it’s mail I’m seriously concerned won’t stop just by me opting out of it. The server hosting that mail system has been flakey lately, and needs to be hard power cycled to make it come...

News about the Rustock takedown

Spam levels plummeted 2 weeks ago as the Rustock botnet was beheaded. Reports have been trickling out in the press about the takedown, about the botnet and about the team responsible. Rustock Takedown Analysis at The Register Brian Krebs’ intitial report of the takedown Taking down botnets from a Microsoft attorney Spam Network Shut Down at the Wall Street Journal Global Spam Levels Graph...

Spammers, eh?

From my inbox, missed by the spamfilter: Do you know people who have worked a lot or could not find a job for a long time and suddenly began to earn well, gain valuable items and look better? We can reveal to you their secret. Anyone who bought a diploma from us raised their standard of living in half! Our diplomas are verified and credible. We offer expert help in selection of the right option...

Holomaxx v. MSFT and Yahoo

I mentioned way back in January that Yahoo had filed a motion to dismiss the case against Holomaxx. Microsoft filed a motion to dismiss around that time, although I didn’t mention it here. And, of course, Holomaxx filed a motion in opposition in both the Microsoft case and the Yahoo case. Nothing terribly interesting here, about what you’d expect to read. On March 11 the judge ruled...

Letters to the abuse desk

Ben over at Mailchimp has shared some of the mail that comes into the mailchimp abuse desk. It’s a post well worth a read. One of the things that leaped out at me during that post is that the positive emails highlight how much the Mailchimp delivery and compliance people help their users get good delivery. They’re not just saying “you can’t do that” because...

Getting it so wrong

One of the things I notice is when vendors send me badly formatted emails. There’s one vendor of ours that gets it so wrong I find it offensive to receive their mails. Not only have they not managed to invoice or process payments correctly for months, but their billing emails come to me with one of the ugliest From: lines I’ve ever seen. Now, I’ve seen Dave Crocker’s...

Thank you, Fred!

I am honored and humbled to be called out as a Goddess of Email Deliverability by Fred Tabsharani in his recent deliverability.com post. He has named and lauded people I am proud to call colleagues and friends. Thank you, Fred.

SORBS Progress

A little bird tells me that GFI have resolved their primary blocking issue on SORBS problems. If all goes well I’d expect their infrastructure and policies to improve significantly over the next few months. We’ll wait and see whether the data quality begins to improve after that.

Recent Posts

Archives

Follow Us