Welcome 2019

It’s the beginning of a new year and everyone is breaking out posts either reviewing the previous year or making predictions for the next year. I’ve done both over the years.

2018 brought us a couple major things in email.

The biggest change was the European General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) came into effect in May. The regulation date drove huge volumes of email throughout the spring as companies sent notices to every email address they ever collected. These notices were a direct result of the regulation, which essentially decreed personal data belongs to the person. Companies that collect personal data about European citizens or European residents have a whole host of regulations over how they manage and maintain that data. The underlying goal is to give people control over their data. The implementations are challenging – many US companies simply block EU IP addresses from their websites – and I expect the rules and conventions to develop over time.

The other big, obvious change was OATH moving AOL properties behind the yahoo.com MXs. For delivery folks, the big challenge seemed to be getting FBLs moved over. Yahoo, and now OATH, uses DKIM for FBLs.

What does 2019 bring? I don’t really know. There are no big rules and regulations coming up, although there is some concern over GDPR style privacy laws in some states. There’s speculation that the Federal government will pass an over arching law that prevents states from regulating privacy. It could happen, that’s basically how we ended up with CAN SPAM. However, the political climate now is very different from what it was in 2003. Congress has a lot on its plate right now and I’m not sure that they’re going to take up data protection. If they do, it’s likely to not be the total wash of a law that CAN SPAM is.

Personally, 2018 involved a major change – one of them being that I became covered under GDPR by moving to Europe. One of the side effects of the move was less blogging. But my intention is to more regularly blog in 2019. Another goal is to update and improve the ISP Information pages. And bring new information and insight into the challenges and delights that comprise email deliverability.

Happy New Year, everyone. May 2019 bring you new adventures, insight, and delight.

 

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August 2017: The month in email

Hello! Hope all are keeping safe through Harvey, Irma, Katia and the aftermath. I know many people that have been affected and are currently out of their homes. I am proud to see so many of my fellow deliverability folks are helping our displaced colleagues with resources, places to stay and money to replace damaged property.
Here’s a mid-month late wrapup of our August blog posts. Our favorite part of August? The total eclipse, which was absolutely amazing. Let me show you some pictures.





Ok, back to email.
We’re proud of the enormous milestone we marked this month: ten years of near-daily posts to our Word to the Wise blog. Thanks for all of your attention and feedback over the past decade!
In other industry news, I pointed to some interesting findings from the Litmus report on the State of Email Deliverability, which is always a terrific resource.
I also wrote about the evolution of filters at web-based email providers, and noted that Gmail’s different approach may well be because it entered the market later than other providers.
In spam, spoofing, and other abuse-related news, I posted about how easy it is for someone to spoof a sender’s identity, even without any technical hacks. This recent incident with several members of the US presidential administration should remind us all to be more careful with making sure we pay attention to where messages come from. How else can you tell that someone might not be wholly legitimate and above-board? I talked about some of what I look at when I get a call from a prospective customer as well as some of the delightful conversations I’ve had with spammers over the years.
In the security arena, Steve noted the ongoing shift to TLS and Google’s announcement that they will label text and email form fields on pages without TLS as “NOT SECURE”. What is TLS, you ask? Steve answers all your questions in a comprehensive post about Transport Layer Security and Certificate Authority Authorization records.
Also worth reading, and not just for the picture of Paddington Bear: Steve’s extremely detailed post about local-part semantics, the chunk of information before the at sign in an email address. How do you choose your email addresses (assuming they are not assigned to you at work or school…)? An email address is an identity, both culturally and for security purposes.
In subscription best practices — or the lack thereof — Steve talked about what happens when someone doesn’t quite complete a user registration. Should you send them a reminder to finish their registration? Of course! Should you keep sending those reminders for 16 months after they’ve stopped engaging with you? THE SURPRISING ANSWER! (Ok, you know us. It wasn’t that surprising.)

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