>From InternetWeek at http://www.internetwk.com/breakingNews/INW20030106S0006: ExactTarget, which provides e-mail marketing services, introduced technology on Monday designed to help legitimate bulk mailers evade spam filters. The service added two new features: Content Detective identifies words, phrases and patterns that are likely to trigger spam filters, and then recommends alternatives. List Detective scans mailing lists as they are uploaded to the service, and identifies suspicious e-mail addresses -- such as [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], and postmaster and abuse addresses -- that are designed to trap spammers. The List Detective functionality is designed to get around a common technique used by spam fighters to identify spam -- they create e-mail accounts and post the addresses of those accounts to the Internet, using the accounts for no legitimate mail whatsoever. Every piece of e-mail coming in to one of those accounts will be spam, and the spam fighters can then block the same messages from arriving at legitimate mail accounts. ExactMail provides hosted e-mail services for permission-based marketing; customers upload mailing lists to ExactMail's hosted applications, provide content and the ExactMail manages the mailing. Legitimate bulk mailers have been collateral damage in the effort to control spam; managers of mailing lists complain that words like "Viagra," used in e-mail, can get legitimate subscription newsletters erroneously tagged as spam and rejected by mail servers. Chip House, director of marketing at ExactMail, said the service makes a priority out of identifying spammers and blocking them from using ExactMail. If a client uses the service to circumvent spam filters, ExactMail contacts the client to review the source of the names, how the client captures e-mail addresses and how the names were opted in. If the service can't verify the list is opt-in, ExactMail won't mail the list and may terminate the contract. Clients must agree contractually not to send spam, and ExactMail monitors uploads, deliveries, bounces and other events to ensure lists are legitimate.
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