Cleaning up a bad e-mail reputation

(continued from previous page)

There is some uniformity in establishing e-mail reputation scores, said George Bilbrey, general manager at ReturnPath. Typically, the score is based on six factors: complaints, percentage of mail sent to nonexistent addresses, number of mail hitting spam traps, response to unsubscribe requests, sending infrastructure and mail volume, he said.

The reputation will be attached to the sender's domain or IP address. Reputation systems may weigh the components differently, depending on their place in the e-mail chain. A spam-filtering appliance or hosted service may give more weight to e-mail volume and patterns, while for an e-mail service provider, the customer complaint rate might be most important.

"Users are voting with their mouse on reputation," said Craig Spiezle, a director at Microsoft, which operates the Hotmail Web e-mail service. "We think that is the best way. It is really in the eyes of the in-box user what is relevant."

But some are troubled by the notion that something set by others--their reputation--can be decisive in whether their e-mail gets delivered. Nicole Hampton, a station production manager at Cox Radio Interactive, worries about the business's reputation being hurt by miscreants abusing Web site mailing features, for example, she said.

Zombies, or computers controlled by outside hackers, pose another threat. An organization could have its systems commandeered and used to send out spam e-mail. This ultimately could affect a company's legitimate e-mail, which may end up being blocked by spam filters, noted Michael Osterman, the head of Osterman Research, which focuses on Internet messaging.

"Reputation filtering is an important component of overall messaging management, but it needs to be combined with other tools to fully protect a network," he said.

Such a hijack of a company's e-mail system is possible, but it probably wouldn't hurt its reputation immediately, Spiezle said, noting that a reputation is established over time.

Checking up
For companies curious about their e-mail reputation, Habeas and ReturnPath both plan to launch online services that will give them some insight into it. Beyond that, Habeas charges $2,500 for a more in-depth diagnosis, and ReturnPath consultants can be hired for $5,000 a month to work with a business and make sure its mail is delivered.

Spam-filtering specialist CipherTrust already offers a Web site, called TrustedSource, that gives some details about its reputation-ranking system. In addition, large e-mail service providers, such as Hotmail, provide a "feedback loop," which lets message senders see the opinion recipients have of them.

One thing that e-mail service providers are looking at is whether it makes sense to share reputation data among ISPs, Microsoft's Spiezle said. Ultimately, he said, providers such as AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft are going to make decisions based on what their users tell them. But pooling information could make reputation data more reliable.

"Sharing best practices and sharing reputation data among major ISPs is some of the discussion that is going on today," Spiezle said.

[Pop4]

Wednesday's election day wouldn't be the same, without BLT's on Sunday.

(at 4:06pm); Church had just ended and I was on kitchen detail. There was no collection this proticulare morning, but the Deacon running the floor was handing out prizes; low and behold nice ones at that.
Without notice or finishing my perishables log extentions of the tomatoes from this weeks produce order, I walked into the auditorium to pull a grey tote from next to the spread of delicious bacon sandwiches and glazed cookies with sugar sprinkles on them for discovery:

Regarding the greatest prize of all, a clean election vote; I descided to weigh in the bucket as shrink and cut my losses; less my meal expenses and the raffle, to submit as my email for insurance purposes.

Getting something for nothing takes and makes 'Oodles' of paper for pocket change.

'Coffee talk for JBoss"

[umbrae]

Funny...

How SPAMMERS clean up their reputation so their SPAM can get through to users... How about you just not send SPAM?

[samiamtoo]

Exactly!

The services in the story are merely attempts to make money from concern over UCE without actually doing anything about it. The worst example is AOL's pay-for service to their subscribers, where spammers who pay vigorish to Times Warner will get whitelisted, but I suspect that the others have similar motivations. Tiered parasites, as it were - pathetic and lame. My recommendation for an organization with more than a handful of email users serverd by a common SMTP delivery point: subscribe to Postini Perimeter Manager. It's extremely effective, has multiple category filters, each of which can be tuned (at the individual address, group, or organizations level) to be stricter or more permissive, and it catches nearly all virus-infected messages to boot. Current pricing at the ~500 user level is a little over $1/user/month. That said, some "stuff" still gets through. As the Postini admin for my employer, I've taken to selectively adding the originators of the UCE I receive to the global blacklist. If there is no unsubscrbe link, I add them right after doing a little research at the DNSStuff.com site. If there is, I try that first, and add them if I get more UCE from them. As CYA, I send an email to the originating address (and the abuse address, if it exists) stating what I have done and why, and inviting them to send me a snail mail letter if they believe the action I've taken is in error. Bottom line is that there is no magic bullet for this, an effective solution requires intelligent insight and directed effort by the email recipient(s), no substitutions allowed...

-Samiam

[dahkness]

Stop Crying.

These services work great for my company that sends millons of opt-in e-mail a month.

Sure you may not LIKE advertisements in your email box, but then again, watch where you enter your e-mail on the internet.

I hear no one complain about the tons of coupons and crap you get in snail mail, but people want to cry and ***** about email ads.

Please make sure when you talk about spam, you speak of REAL spam. Not just things you DON'T Want in your e-mail.

9 times out of 10 people who complain about spam, put their e-mail address in a box and checked off 'I agree' to something which put your email on a list for mailing. Regardless of it was apparent to you or not, read what you sign before you sign it.

You may think my e-mail is spam when it is really not. I am I'm 100% CAN-Spam Compliant, and all our e-mails are opt in or double opt, but people still complain. "Report as spam" is NOT an unsubscribe link. So as educate yourself on what is and is not spam. People who think anything they don't want in their email box is spam, is flat out wrong. There are criteria and we live by them.

[TV James]

Lazy People Ruin It

I can't tell you how many legitimate subscriptions I've had end up in my junk mail folder.

Often I suspect it's people who are too dumb or too lazy to actually unsubscribe and just junk the newsletter. (Although having had my share of newsletters keep coming after you've unsubscribed, I could believe some complaints of failed unsubscribes.)

Although, equally bad... people who pay your ISP to let them deliver mail to you THAT YOU NEVER ASKED FOR. And no matter how many times you hit JUNK, there it is, every week, in your inbox. Yes, I'm referring to Hotmail and the stupid MLB e-mails.

[jsmith12]

Sometimes though

It's a matter of some newsletters NOT paying attention to your request. I'm dealing with that at the moment. I've unsubscribed, and I keep getting it.

[jsmith12]

Sometimes though

It's a matter of some newsletters NOT paying attention to your request. I'm dealing with that at the moment. I've unsubscribed, and I keep getting it.

[alek_nedic]

my junk mail folder

http://www.analogstereo.com/mazda_rx8_owners_manual.htm

[deylat2]

SPAMMINGNEWSLETTERS

It is notlazyness but ifI receive 11 e-mails in the AM and 10 are unsolicited newsletters, halfofwhich violate the requirementforasimple"unsubscribe(whyin hell should I unsub from somethingI never requested in the first plce.someofthese "newsletters arebarelydisguised scams from "universities" andrequire as manyas 10 steps to unsubscribe, omeaking for very privateinfo that couldand often does lead to identity theft.I havea bettersolutionthedeath penaslty for theentire management team of the offenders andpunitive actionsagainstthe employees perpetratingthescams.I also suggestthttheexecutions beby hanging old English style :high andshort and televised as part of prime time news.I would wagera couple of bucks thi would put a serious dent into thespamming scamming even if these felons used offshore propagators.
let's stop be so nice to criminals!

[Talar9]

Hotmail?s "feedback loop," which lets message senders see the opinion...

I couldn?t find where the senders can see the opinion recipients have of them at the link ?feedback loop?. Anybody can help to locate it?

[ChrisLang]

Microsoft FBLs

Like all ISPs / ESPs they do require a dedicated IP address(s) for you associated email servers.

The FAQ: http://postmaster.live.com/Services.aspx#ISPSolutions

The application: https://support.msn.com/eform.aspx?productKey=edfsjmrpp&page=support_home_options_form_byemail&ct=eformts

Also the best way to avoid spam filters is ask your subscribers to whitelist you email address. I have a email whitelising generator on my site as a free service to all here: http://www.keywebdata.com/?page_id=28

[spammer who whats your ..]

now microsoft is getting into the spamming business

somehow these `less than active braincell' persons

seem to `think' that i have ever even bothered looking at spam

`HELLO' (rapps on skull)

if i wanted something from you

I WOULD HAVE ASKED OR LOOKED FOR IT

i dont care how they try to `justify' it

they(and the other 2 billion spammers out there that clog up my inbox)

are basically wasting my time(and my $$-as im paying per meg..)

the next time some git in some resturant goes `hey bill i got a great idea'

can i buy a small thermonuke

Ripley: I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure ... You're going out there to destroy them, right? Not to study. ...

[spammer who whats your ..]

forgot to include the link

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=internetNews&storyid=2006-05-04T050953Z_01_SP113939_RTRUKOC_0_US- MICROSOFT-ADVERTISEMENTS.xml