Over on his blog, John Levine offers up a review of the history of the .PW TLD (top-level domain). The context: Recently relaunched, .PW has perhaps immediately become a spam haven. John mentions that at least one receiver is already treating mail referencing .PW as “block on sight.” Incidentally, John’s not the only friend of mine complaining about a recent uptick of spam...
(Hi! Al Iverson here. I’ll be guest blogging a bit while Laura and Steve are off dealing with stuff.) Over on the BRANDED3 blog, Search Strategist Stephen Kenwright shares how social network Path sent text messages to everybody in his address book, very early in the morning on Tuesday, telling everyone that he had shared pictures with him on Path. Except, according to him, he hadn’t...
Recently, a client asked me, what is the value to ISPs in utilizing Return Path Certification (formerly known as Sender Score Certified)? Meaning, why do ISPs use it? A number of ISPs both big and small have spam filtering systems that treat certified IP addresses differently than non-certified IP addresses. Sometimes spam filtering is bypassed, effectively guaranteeing inbox delivery. Sometimes...
Asking for permission is an obvious best practice in email marketing. But, it applies to billing and fees as well, if you ask the FTC. Click here to read about their settlement with Jason Strober of payday loan marketer Swish Marketing.
I manage inbound mail for a large set of mailboxes at work; and a number of those mailboxes are on various Zeus botnet spam lists. So, every day, I’m treated to the Zeus botnet “flavor of the day,” giving me insight into who they’re spoofing at any given time. A client asked me why the messages morph so often and I explained that the spammers seem to be continually...
In the realm of email, content filtering is old hat. Nowadays, it’s all about reputation and engagement. Okay, sure, content filtering still exists, but the bad old days are long gone. No more do you have to worry that using the word FREE in the subject line is going to get your mail blocked. Sounds like spam blocking in the world of text messaging is not quite as modern, according to a...
Have you ever sent an email message, and received an automated response in reply? And in that reply, you are asked to “prove that you are human” by clicking on a link and/or entering a CAPTCHA code. What is this? Is it new? When that happens, you’re interacting with a “challenge response” email filtering system. When you receive a “prove that you’re...
Hi! Al Iverson here. I offered to guest blog for my friend Laura Atkins, as she’s off to a conference for a few days. If you like my posts, c’mon over and visit me at my blog, Spam Resource. A few weeks ago, an industry colleague asked me why I’m so anti-email append. I’m not specifically anti-email append, I’m just not very fond of things that cause deliverability...
E-Postage is back! Wired covers a report from New Scientist. Here’s what they have to say: “Yahoo’s researchers want you to voluntarily slap a one-cent stamp on your outgoing e-mails, with proceeds going to charity, in a bid to cut down on spam. Can doing good really do away with spam, which consumes 33 terawatt hours of electricity every year, not to mention way too much of our time...
Trend Micro warns us today about how spam and phishing can hit you even in the closed ecosystem of a social networking system such as Facebook. Malware abounds. And in the social network arena, just like anywhere else, “using your account to send spam” is a common thing for the bad guys to want to do. In Rik Ferguson’s investigation (which I read about on CNet News), he came...
RSS - Posts