The obvious application of machine learning for email is to send spam to the junk/bulk folder. Most services use some level of machine learning for filters. Places like Gmail have extensive machine learning filters to filter spam and unwanted mail away from their users. Some organizations are taking the filtering process a step further. Almost every mail client more advanced than PINE has the...
Google Apps for ISPs is gone
Google Apps for ISPs is being shut down. While this was a scheduled end of life, apparently some users weren’t notified (always keep the contact email address up to date at your vendor!) and other users were told that it would be discontinued in July and were surprised when their service was turned off a month earlier than they expected. I’ve not seen any reports of mail bouncing due...
Yahoo Feedback Loop
If you are utilizing the Yahoo Complaint Feedback Loop, you should have received an email today about an upcoming change to the CFL. The message received was: “On June 29, 2015, we will transition Yahoo Complaint Feedback Loop (CFL) administration from Return Path to Yahoo Customer Care. We will continue sending spam reports during this transition. However, you will need to save existing...
Another M3AAWG on the books
Another M3AAWG is over. It was great to see old friends, some of whom I’ve known for more than a decade. It was even better to meet new people who I’m sure will become old friends. The conference has grown so much bigger than my first MAAWG back in San Diego (MAAWG 3 in 2005). That was maybe a hundred people. Today M3AAWG has more members companies than were at the original conference...
Whirlwind that is M3AAWG
It’s been a great conference, and it’s only about half done. As is common at these conferences, I write down lots of things we should do and need to publish. The difference is now that we are growing I may have the time to put the polish on them and get them published. Today’s keynote discussed the economics of botnet mitigation. Michel van Eeten from Delft University of...
2016 Mary Litynski Award
The Mary Litynski Award is presented by M3AAWG to people who have done extensive work outside the public eye over a significant period of time. At the Dublin conference the award was presented to Rodney Joffe. A lot of other people will talk about Rodney’s accomplishments, including his role in the founding of Genuity, his work with the DMA in the early days of spam, his efforts against SMS...
May 2015: The Month in Email
Greetings from Dublin, where we’re gearing up for M3AAWG adventures. In the blog this month, we did a post on purchased lists that got a lot of attention. If you’ve been reading the blog for any length of time, you know how I feel about purchased lists — they perform poorly and cause delivery problems, and we always advise clients to steer clear. With your help, we’ve now compiled a list of...
We gave you a chance…
Our formerly feral cat was diagnosed with hyperthyroid disease earlier this year. This week she went in for treatment with radioactive iodine. Now that she’s home, we have some minor safety precautions (mostly around keeping radiation out of landfills and minimizing our exposure) for the next 2 weeks. In previous careers, both Steve and I have been licensed to work with radioactivity so...
Deliverability and IP addresses
Almost 2 years ago I wrote a blog post titled The Death of IP Based Reputation. These days I’m even more sure that IP based reputation is well and truly dead for legitimate senders. There are a lot of reasons for this continued change. Improved computing power I touched on the increase in computing power in my 2013 post. The power and the complexity of filters in even greater now than then...
Only spamtraps matter, or do they?
I received mail from Mitusbishi UK over the weekend, telling me that as a subscriber I was eligible to buy a car from one of their dealers, or something. I didn’t actually read the whole thing. While I am competent in a right hand drive, even when it’s a manual, it’s not something I want to try over here in the US. The address the message came to is one that I’ve had for...