Chip wrote: > My mistake NOT "bounces-to" rather "return-path"
Return-path is a header added by the receiving MTA (usually on final delivery) that contains the envelope sender (MAIL FROM) used by the sending system. > as in the following > snippet of campaign emails from Home Depot, Martha Stewart and Sears: > Return-path:<bounce-21178_html-212410161-2947777-1014284...@bounce.homedepotemail.com> Notice this one contains an extended ID number? Their mail-sending infrastructure almost certainly generates this pseudoaddress on a per-mailing+recipient basis, so automated systems can quickly tell whose email is bouncing, and which email campaign it bounced on. > Return-path:<everydayf...@mail.marthastewart.com> This doesn't use a unique envelope sender for each recipient, so they'll have to do more complex parsing of any bounce messages to identify stale recipients. > So is "Return-path" supposed to be respected? Because the company I was > speaking of insists it's appropriate to send bounces to something other > than "Return-path" usually the "From" or "Reply-to". No; as stated upthread bounces must be sent to the envelope sender address. Any system sending bounces to any other address is misbehaving and may end up blacklisted (locally or in public datasources like DNSBLs) because of it. All that said, if *you* are a perfectly innocent bulk-mailer who is *receiving* bounces to the wrong place, you'll probably have to suck up and deal with it to keep your service clean. -kgd
