What Happens when Legit Services are Seen as Spam?

AssFace asks: "I run a blog that is dedicated to just things relating to spam (for the most part, the discussion is of how to stop it). I received an e-mail from a reader of the blog today that described the situation he was in. His words: 'I have a small recruiting business, with about 600 paying clients who are looking for jobs in education. About twice a month, I send an update message to all of them via e-mail. I also send them personal messages as needed. Unfortunately, Hotmail (which a great many of my clients use) seems to think that I am a spammer. With Hotmail's spam blocker set on "Medium," my e-mails go to the recipient's Spam folder. AOL and Yahoo may be blocking my messages as well, though I'm not yet certain.' I wrote my own thoughts on it and then offered it up to comments from the users of the site. My responses to his e-mail apparently weren't anything that could help his particular situation. So, regardless of the validity of this particular person's plea, what is a small business service to do if they are blocked by the major ISPs?"

Comments

Contact the ISPs.

[GregChant]

We have that problem here from time to time, and the way we solve it is by actually calling up or e-mailing the ISP explaining the situation. Usually they're helpful and will give you directions on how to prevent further blacklisting.

Find out why

[Finni]

This is probably pretty easy. He needs to get the mail headers from his clients that are affected by this. Each provider probably adds X-headers that add up to a score, a spam determinant. Some providers may choose to not put a detailed score listing in, oh well. I know that the system we use is based on SpamAssassin, and every rule has a weight. Things like entries in DNS-RBL add to the score, or no reverse-DNS, Bayesian scoring, keywords, etc.

Find out why, and fix each thing that comes up. Maybe his mailserver has no reverse DNS, fix that. Maybe his ISP or his IP is on a blacklist, get it fixed or take his business elsewhere. Maybe subscribe to a service that handles email marketing responsibly, like (gasp) Microsoft's bCentral, they will make sure that they don't get blacklisted.

Report it...

[iamchris]

My company's emais were being dumped into the spam folder on Yahoo! Getting our email out of the Bulkmail folder was a lengthy process that took several attempts to start. I had to submit sample copies of our standard emails, and a copy of our privacy policy, and a rather lengthy survey. They reviewed the information, put us on probation, and reviewed the findings at the end of a month. My company is legit. I had no doubt that they would back our company off the blacklist. Incidently, the only way I found the proper channel to report the problem was to contact corporate HQ. Some deep digging was done and I finally ended up with an email address to report to: mail-abuse-bulk@yahoo-inc.com

Habeas

[wintahmoot]

Sounds like the Habeas Sender Warranted Email Solution would help here.

Basically you just have to include a special, copyrighted Haiku in your e-mail, and most spam filters will let your mail through. The Haiku warrants that your e-mail is not spam, because you have to license the usage of the Haiku, and the terms prevent from using it in spam mail.

I'm not sure if Hotmail respects the Habeas Haiku, but it might be worth a try.

Do you have any experience with Powweb?

[Futurepower(R)]

Do you have any experience with Powweb?

About two years ago, I reviewed 550 web hosting providers and came to the conclusion that PowWeb was the best for low- and medium-traffic sites. I've had to explain to customers that, even though Powweb is inexpensive, it is better than all the $30/month web hosting providers I've seen.