Spammer is as spammer does
Laura has an outstanding post about coming changes to reputation systems up at her blog. If you haven’t had a look at it, you should. Part of one of the comments, though, has caused a bit of a commotion: While I’m with you in spirit, I’m not optimistic that “blocking ESPs” will have much of a lasting Read More
Barry Speaks: We won’t shut-up and eat your spam
Today we have a guest post from the ever popular Barry. Al Iverson, Too Much Contact, Spam Resource (2009), http://www.spamresource.com/2009/10/too-much-contact.html. Barry is overworked, underpaid, and wants to get the word out: I’ve been hearing a lot of chatter about how ESPs think the ISPs should just shut up and eat their spam. That if the Read More
When is transactional mail not transactional anymore?
An interesting question came across my desk this morning. Here’s the request from someone we’ll call “Joe”: I need some help understanding CAN-SPAM requirements. I represent a membership organization. From time to time, we send marketing message to our members and, of course, some of the unsubscribe from those messages. Now we are getting to Read More
The hard truth about email
Many clients expect email to be sort of an automatic thing. The thinking is “I should hit ‘Send’ and it should arrive within moments.” So, sometimes those of us who work in email hear comments like the following: I understand that these delays may not be your fault, but we can’t have delays. and: It’s Read More
Breaking: SORBS bought by GFI (with confirmation!)
Jed Smith is reporting that SORBS has been purchased by GFI Software for “for a cool half a mil”. Not being one to sit idly by, I went for comment directly to GFI. Here is their response, sent via David Kelleher, GFI’s PR Manager: GFI Software, a leading infrastructure provider, has acquired SORBS, one of the premier anti-spam reputation services Read More
Use Private Domain Registration and Go to Jail?
The 9th Circuit opinion in USA v. Kilbride has been released. This is primarily an obscenity case against the defendants for sending pornographic spam email. But, it also includes a challenge to 18 U.S.C. § 1037 on vagueness grounds. 18 U.S.C. § 1037 is the part of the [acp id=”Wikimedia-01″ media=”wiki” title=”CAN-SPAM Act of 2003″ Read More
Filters are stupid
Sometimes it bears remembering that many content filters aren’t score-based, but rather string-based. Because of this, you may have to more carefully craft your messages to deal with the fact that the filter cannot take context into account. And so, today I wish to share with you three different strings actually seen to have caused Read More
Guest Blog: Consumers Cautiously Optimistic about the Future
Today, we have a guest blog from the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE). CAUCE has been heavily involved in crafting a worthy anti-spam law in Canada, so I reached out to them to see if they would like to guest blog here. Neil Schwartzman, CAUCE’s Executive Director, wrote back with the following: Neil Schwartzman Read More
Pottery warriors are standing by…
…but they’re impotent and broken. On Saturday, I took the kids to the Houston Museum of Natural History to see its exhibit of the famous Chinese Terracotta Army. One of the things that I keep stressing to my kids as we have started homeschooling them is that history is all about the stories, not the Read More
Something that authentication can’t help
The email said, “Our last mailing had 30 complaints at AOL. Will signing with DKIM and SPF help with our reputation there?” In some ways, that is a fair question. We do talk about reputation a lot and how authentication ties into that. But, really, this is something that authentication can’t help because, for all Read More