Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Michael Wise via mailop]

Certainly not with all spam traps, but if someone is reviewing the data, and 
trying to decide what to do with a sample, an "Open" message might get sent in 
error.

But a reply should never be sent, and so a classical SpamTrap would not pass a 
COI test.



... unless it had gathered dust for a very long time, or the new domain's owner 
didn't follow the (Reject for 6 months to a year) BCP.



Just MHO.

Aloha,
Michael.
--
Michael J Wise
Microsoft Corporation| Spam Analysis
"Your Spam Specimen Has Been Processed."
Got the Junk Mail Reporting 
Tool ?



-Original Message-
From: mailop  On Behalf Of Stefano Bagnara
Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 4:39 PM
To: Aaron C. de Bruyn via mailop 
Subject: Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators



On 8 March 2018 at 01:02, Laura Atkins 
> wrote:

> [...]

> Sure, we agree. But there are folks who don’t agree with us. Some of

> those folks run spamtrap networks that feel blocklist data. I think

> it’s important to acknowledge that. At one point you could do COI and

> still get on a blocklist because you sent to a spamtrap.



That's why we need to find someone that is able to share real bits on the 
issues (who's who).



We can't expect a provider to fix a bad habit (or to publicly explain there was 
a bug) if no one talks about it and people keep buying its services ignoring 
those issues.



If they feed a blocklist like that and I buy a blocklist that is fed that way 
I'd be very disappointed.



If they do that sistematically then they will create a lot of false positives 
and blocklist users will start complaining.. so I really hope/guess we're 
talking about a bug.



> At one point you could do COI and

> mail to folks who’d only opened an email in the past few weeks and

> still get on a blocklist because you sent to a spamtrap. This affected

> real senders who weren’t spamming.



Just to make this more interesting, I think this may have a slighly different 
"story" that may be "right".



2014: I collect the addr...@example.com email 
address



2015: the example.com domain expires, is bought by the spamtrap network that 
starts returning 511 this will become a spamtrap for 365 days.



2017: I decide to send an email to that address for the first time, I hit the 
spamtrap. Some network doesn't report back your first hit, instead they 
sometimes make opens/clicks, I don't know if they do that to simulate traffic 
or for some other reasons.. (hint: I saw clicks/opens from antivirus/antispam 
cloud providers IP spaces, but I don't know the reasons).



2 weeks later I send a second email only to people that opened in the last 
month, and addr...@example.com is reported, 
correctly, as a spamtrap hit.



So, it was COI, and I was writing only to openers from the last month, and 
still I hit a "3 years old repurposed spamtrap".



Let's take into consideration that spamtrap network have to do their homework 
to avoid being identified easily, so if they never do opens/clicks they already 
put a big flash on them. So I think it is OK for a spamtrap to open/click or 
even reply to an email, but it is important that the email address has been in 
a "user unknown" state for at least 1 year (or something similar).



Stefano



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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Steve Atkins]

> On Mar 7, 2018, at 4:38 PM, Stefano Bagnara  wrote:
> 
> Let's take into consideration that spamtrap network have to do their
> homework to avoid being identified easily, so if they never do
> opens/clicks they already put a big flash on them. So I think it is OK
> for a spamtrap to open/click or even reply to an email, but it is
> important that the email address has been in a "user unknown" state
> for at least 1 year (or something similar).

No. Never. If you do that then the address is tainted and you
*cannot* legitimately use information as it as evidence that mail
sent to it was unwanted. You can still use it for quite a few
interesting things, but you can't use it as a spamtrap (unless
you want to spend another year rejecting everything).

I talked about this at some length about six and a half
years ago. It wasn't a new problem then.

https://wordtothewise.com/2011/08/a-disturbing-trend/

Cheers,
  Steve


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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Laura Atkins]

> On Mar 7, 2018, at 4:38 PM, Stefano Bagnara  wrote:
> 
> On 8 March 2018 at 01:02, Laura Atkins  wrote:
>> [...]
>> Sure, we agree. But there are folks who don’t agree with us. Some of those
>> folks run spamtrap networks that feel blocklist data. I think it’s important
>> to acknowledge that. At one point you could do COI and still get on a
>> blocklist because you sent to a spamtrap.
> 
> That's why we need to find someone that is able to share real bits on
> the issues (who's who).
> 
> We can't expect a provider to fix a bad habit (or to publicly explain
> there was a bug) if no one talks about it and people keep buying its
> services ignoring those issues.

Talking about it on a public mailing list is very different from addressing the 
issue. In fact, I’d say public discussions are a last resort. In the cases I’m 
aware of, the data was shared with people who could do something about it. Some 
of those were the blocklist maintainers who could choose to make changes in 
their trap management. Some of those were the blocklist users who could choose 
to make changes in their vendor selection. 

> If they feed a blocklist like that and I buy a blocklist that is fed
> that way I'd be very disappointed.
> 
> If they do that sistematically then they will create a lot of false
> positives and blocklist users will start complaining.. so I really
> hope/guess we're talking about a bug.

Not really a bug, more a deliberate policy choice. 

I’m cutting the rest because what you’re saying is a completely different 
situation to what I’m talking about. What you’re saying happens with most of 
the widely used blocklists. There are a couple, though, that buy an expired 
domain and turn it, immediately, into a spamtrap. Addresses that are mailed 
daily are opening and clicking mail one week and a spamtrap the next. 

Fundamentally, though, if you are concerned about how your vendors are handling 
their traps, the right thing to do is contact them and ask how they do things. 
Not wait for people to bring it up publicly. The public discussion doesn’t 
really work very effectively to get folks to change. They’re often too 
defensive to have a constructive conversation, a position that is wholly 
reasonable. 

laura 

-- 
Having an Email Crisis?  We can help! 800 823-9674 

Laura Atkins
Word to the Wise
la...@wordtothewise.com
(650) 437-0741  

Email Delivery Blog: https://wordtothewise.com/blog 







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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Stefano Bagnara]

On 8 March 2018 at 01:02, Laura Atkins  wrote:
> [...]
> Sure, we agree. But there are folks who don’t agree with us. Some of those
> folks run spamtrap networks that feel blocklist data. I think it’s important
> to acknowledge that. At one point you could do COI and still get on a
> blocklist because you sent to a spamtrap.

That's why we need to find someone that is able to share real bits on
the issues (who's who).

We can't expect a provider to fix a bad habit (or to publicly explain
there was a bug) if no one talks about it and people keep buying its
services ignoring those issues.

If they feed a blocklist like that and I buy a blocklist that is fed
that way I'd be very disappointed.

If they do that sistematically then they will create a lot of false
positives and blocklist users will start complaining.. so I really
hope/guess we're talking about a bug.

> At one point you could do COI and
> mail to folks who’d only opened an email in the past few weeks and still get
> on a blocklist because you sent to a spamtrap. This affected real senders
> who weren’t spamming.

Just to make this more interesting, I think this may have a slighly
different "story" that may be "right".

2014: I collect the addr...@example.com email address

2015: the example.com domain expires, is bought by the spamtrap
network that starts returning 511 this will become a spamtrap for 365
days.

2017: I decide to send an email to that address for the first time, I
hit the spamtrap. Some network doesn't report back your first hit,
instead they sometimes make opens/clicks, I don't know if they do that
to simulate traffic or for some other reasons.. (hint: I saw
clicks/opens from antivirus/antispam cloud providers IP spaces, but I
don't know the reasons).

2 weeks later I send a second email only to people that opened in the
last month, and addr...@example.com is reported, correctly, as a
spamtrap hit.

So, it was COI, and I was writing only to openers from the last month,
and still I hit a "3 years old repurposed spamtrap".

Let's take into consideration that spamtrap network have to do their
homework to avoid being identified easily, so if they never do
opens/clicks they already put a big flash on them. So I think it is OK
for a spamtrap to open/click or even reply to an email, but it is
important that the email address has been in a "user unknown" state
for at least 1 year (or something similar).

Stefano

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Re: [mailop] Old lists - how old?

[Laura Atkins]

> On Mar 7, 2018, at 3:18 PM, Brett Schenker  wrote:
> 
> For political/non-profits, I tell my clients that about 1/3 of the list goes 
> bad each year. The math usually works out when they send after not listening.

https://wordtothewise.com/2015/07/yes-there-is-list-churn/ 


I thought the original data was out of date and list churn wasn’t that 
extensive. Turns out, I was wrong. 

laura

-- 
Having an Email Crisis?  We can help! 800 823-9674 

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Word to the Wise
la...@wordtothewise.com
(650) 437-0741  

Email Delivery Blog: https://wordtothewise.com/blog 







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Re: [mailop] Old lists - how old?

[Michael Wise via mailop]

Speaking for myself, if I were managing such mailings, anything longer than 3 
months and I'd wanna toss it and start over.
Or at the very least, send it out from a dedicated IP pool different from the 
ones used by the main lists.

Aloha,
Michael.
-- 
Michael J Wise
Microsoft Corporation| Spam Analysis
"Your Spam Specimen Has Been Processed."
Got the Junk Mail Reporting Tool ?

-Original Message-
From: mailop  On Behalf Of Hal Murray
Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 2:36 PM
To: mailop@mailop.org
Cc: Hal Murray 
Subject: [mailop] Old lists - how old?


> Some of them do and clearly states how many months they keep a 5xx 
> error before turning the domain into a spamtrap.

Is there a BCP or consensus on how long a list can sit inactive before it 
should be thrown away?


-- 
These are my opinions.  I hate spam.




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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Laura Atkins]

> On Mar 7, 2018, at 3:40 PM, Stefano Bagnara  wrote:
> 
> On 8 March 2018 at 00:08, Laura Atkins  wrote:
>> [...]
>> I don’t either, but I am not fighting language with folks.
> 
> I'm sorry Laura. My mother language is not english and your "tone" is
> unexpected to me, so I probably used wrong translations for my
> questions.

No, you were right. My bad for being unclear and coming across harshly. 

What I’m saying is that other people decided to call these things spamtraps. I 
think they’re wrong, but am not going to fight over terminology (which is what 
I meant when I said language) and will just use their terminology even if I 
think it’s somewhat misleading.  

> No need to fight anything.. I'm just discussing in a list and trying
> to give and get back like I always do.

That was more a reference to 20+ years of history of arguing email / spam 
related definitions in various places. I had my fill of arguing about 
terminology (confirmed! Double! Confirmed! Double!) somewhere in 2004. 

>> [...]
>> I have, and know other people who have, and again, this was discussed
>> earlier this month at M3AAWG.
> 
> I'm not in M3AAWG, but I hoped that some info that can be shared in
> the M3AAWG could be anonymized and shared here too.
> If this is not the case, then ok, I just asked. Maybe someone else
> will feel to share something.

Most of the M3AAWG sessions have statements of confidentiality associated with 
them. This was one of them. I’ve repeated some of the things I said as part of 
the panel, but won’t be repeating stuff any of my colleagues said.

But, in terms of anonymizing and sharing… that’s what I did. 

>> But, it’s kinda a big deal to call out stuff like this and while we’ve
>> called out blocking companies / blacklists in the past, I’m not in a
>> position where I think that will provide an overall benefit by making the
>> information public. It’s also not like I’m the only person who knows this.
>> 
>> In one instance with a client, they were using one of the aforementioned
>> delivery monitoring companies and saw a “pristine trap" hit. They were able
>> to identify the specific address as the company provides the full text of
>> the message. They had recent (within a few weeks) click data from that
>> address and a purchase within a few months.
> 
> OK so if I got it right then these "delivery monitoring" spamtraps are
> not really used by anyone but the delivery monitoring service itself.
> It helps the paying ESP/ISP to identify problematic senders in their
> network and they also need spamtraps for them.. maybe they have too
> few of them so they have been a bit "easy" introducing new domains to
> have more data to monetize.

Yup. Basically. 

> In this case either they had a bug, needs to better document how they
> create spamtraps or they are "abusing" their customers trust.
> We can agree that it is hard to define what can be a spamtrap and how
> many months are needed for them to become spamtraps, but I think we
> all agree that a valid/working inbox can't become a spam trap in a
> week.

Sure, we agree. But there are folks who don’t agree with us. Some of those 
folks run spamtrap networks that feel blocklist data. I think it’s important to 
acknowledge that. At one point you could do COI and still get on a blocklist 
because you sent to a spamtrap. At one point you could do COI and mail to folks 
who’d only opened an email in the past few weeks and still get on a blocklist 
because you sent to a spamtrap. This affected real senders who weren’t 
spamming. 

laura 

-- 
Having an Email Crisis?  We can help! 800 823-9674 

Laura Atkins
Word to the Wise
la...@wordtothewise.com
(650) 437-0741  

Email Delivery Blog: https://wordtothewise.com/blog 







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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Stefano Bagnara]

On 8 March 2018 at 00:08, Laura Atkins  wrote:
> [...]
> I don’t either, but I am not fighting language with folks.

I'm sorry Laura. My mother language is not english and your "tone" is
unexpected to me, so I probably used wrong translations for my
questions.
No need to fight anything.. I'm just discussing in a list and trying
to give and get back like I always do.

> [...]
> I have, and know other people who have, and again, this was discussed
> earlier this month at M3AAWG.

I'm not in M3AAWG, but I hoped that some info that can be shared in
the M3AAWG could be anonymized and shared here too.
If this is not the case, then ok, I just asked. Maybe someone else
will feel to share something.

> But, it’s kinda a big deal to call out stuff like this and while we’ve
> called out blocking companies / blacklists in the past, I’m not in a
> position where I think that will provide an overall benefit by making the
> information public. It’s also not like I’m the only person who knows this.
>
> In one instance with a client, they were using one of the aforementioned
> delivery monitoring companies and saw a “pristine trap" hit. They were able
> to identify the specific address as the company provides the full text of
> the message. They had recent (within a few weeks) click data from that
> address and a purchase within a few months.

OK so if I got it right then these "delivery monitoring" spamtraps are
not really used by anyone but the delivery monitoring service itself.
It helps the paying ESP/ISP to identify problematic senders in their
network and they also need spamtraps for them.. maybe they have too
few of them so they have been a bit "easy" introducing new domains to
have more data to monetize.

In this case either they had a bug, needs to better document how they
create spamtraps or they are "abusing" their customers trust.
We can agree that it is hard to define what can be a spamtrap and how
many months are needed for them to become spamtraps, but I think we
all agree that a valid/working inbox can't become a spam trap in a
week.

>> Can you give some hint about the spamtrap network?
>
> I did, in the original paragraph.

OK, thank you.

> [...]
> I don’t keep that information around. I don’t want to know what traps are. I
> don’t want to know what domains traps are using. Overall, I don’t want to
> have that trail. I can’t reveal what I don’t record. When I do run into a
> trap or set of traps or domains I just let it be forgotten.
>
> If that makes me untrustworthy to you, I totally understand. I’ve given you
> no reason to believe me and here I am refusing to give you a reason or
> examples. Even worse, I am making very logical arguments about why I may not
> have kept said evidence. I get why you don’t believe and don’t want to
> believe. The best I can hope for is you’ll keep an open mind and look
> through your own data and test data you have to see if you can confirm it.

No problem Laura, thank you anyway for you great contributions to this list!

Stefano

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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[John Johnstone]

On 3/7/2018 4:12 AM, Stefano Bagnara wrote:

On 2 March 2018 at 21:45, John Johnstone
 wrote:


One concern with respect to hat color I was thinking about was if there 
is a significant security threat from spear-phishing that is facilitated 
by the validating / guessing.  From what has been mentioned so far, it 
seems not to be.



That said, some ESP have a different opinion from me, as I just read
this recent post:
https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2018/03/verifying-emails-win-win-email-marketing/



PS: between the many email verification tools, Kickbox
(https://kickbox.com/about) have a claim "Kickbox is a white hat
service provider".
I find it interesting that logs here show briteverify using quite a few 
addresses of what seem to be guessing attempts with combinations of 
first name / last name / initials.  Although their combinations are not 
as extensive as the first ones I cited, if these addresses only come 
from subscribers lists, how could these combinations get into these 
lists in the first place?  Definitely not from "List decay".  There is 
definitely a bad smell coming from someplace.  In addition, some of the 
addresses they're verifying have been invalid for 15 years.  "Decay" for 
those set in a pretty long time ago.


-
John J.

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Re: [mailop] Old lists - how old?

[Brett Schenker]

For political/non-profits, I tell my clients that about 1/3 of the list
goes bad each year. The math usually works out when they send after not
listening.

On Mar 7, 2018 6:05 PM, "Steve Atkins"  wrote:

>
> > On Mar 7, 2018, at 2:36 PM, Hal Murray  wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Some of them do and clearly states how many months they keep a 5xx error
> >> before turning the domain into a spamtrap.
> >
> > Is there a BCP or consensus on how long a list can sit inactive before it
> > should be thrown away?
>
> I don't think there's anything particularly solid.
>
> If you're not mailing to a list at least monthly you need to really be
> aware
> of address churn.
>
> But if you're, say, a political organization it's not impossible that your
> expected
> tempo for some segments might have gaps of maybe three years in it. Sending
> *something* more often is a good idea, but I'd be more likely to tell you
> "expect
> some serious delivery pain when mailing this" than "you have to throw it
> all
> away".
>
> "Best practice for spamtraps is that the reject mail for 12 months before
> being
> reused" would be part of the "expect pain" conversation.
>
> Cheers,
>   Steve
>
>
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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[John Levine]

In article <760493287b1f4d1888261519139f3...@infusionsoft.com> you write:
>In the worst examples I've seen, the domain went from a legitimate mail server 
>to a trap network in the same day, with no time for bounces in between.

It's hard to believe any BL that anyone actually uses would do that.

I can believe that someone would, but as has been noted before, any nitwit can
run a BL, many nitwits do, and that doesn't mean anyone uses their BL.

If you're talking about bounce.io, they did (may still) collect
traffic from lots of abandoned domains, but beyond their original
silly plan to monetize bounces, it was for stats, not for
blacklisting.

R's,
John

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Re: [mailop] Old lists - how old?

[Steve Atkins]

> On Mar 7, 2018, at 2:36 PM, Hal Murray  wrote:
> 
> 
>> Some of them do and clearly states how many months they keep a 5xx error
>> before turning the domain into a spamtrap. 
> 
> Is there a BCP or consensus on how long a list can sit inactive before it 
> should be thrown away?

I don't think there's anything particularly solid.

If you're not mailing to a list at least monthly you need to really be aware
of address churn.

But if you're, say, a political organization it's not impossible that your 
expected
tempo for some segments might have gaps of maybe three years in it. Sending
*something* more often is a good idea, but I'd be more likely to tell you 
"expect
some serious delivery pain when mailing this" than "you have to throw it all
away".

"Best practice for spamtraps is that the reject mail for 12 months before being
reused" would be part of the "expect pain" conversation.

Cheers,
  Steve


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[mailop] Old lists - how old?

[Hal Murray]

> Some of them do and clearly states how many months they keep a 5xx error
> before turning the domain into a spamtrap. 

Is there a BCP or consensus on how long a list can sit inactive before it 
should be thrown away?


-- 
These are my opinions.  I hate spam.




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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Stefano Bagnara]

On 7 March 2018 at 22:52, Laura Atkins  wrote:
> There are companies that have commercialized spamtraps and at least 2 of the
> delivery monitoring companies will tell you when you’ve hit a trap.

Sure I know.. that's why I'm asking what is the network.
If someone sells spamtrap hits data and the spamtraps are 1 day old
while they declare they are at least 1 year old then I think it worth
sharing.

> In other
> cases, some compliance folks will data mine to find spamtrap domains when a
> blacklist is telling them that they are listed due to spamtrap hits. I’m
> pretty sure I’m not the only person who has identified various spamtrap
> accounts over the years.

I probably made my questions using the wrong words... I know *a lot*
of spamtraps and spamtrap networks.
Then I know a lot of "do something else with expired domains" networks
that have no effects on reputations or blacklists, so I don't consider
them spamtraps, but blackholes.

I never seen the behaviour you describe from one the spamtrap networks
that I know sell their data or I know have impact on reputation
somewhere. That's why I was courious.

> In one instance with a client, they were using one of the aforementioned
> delivery monitoring companies and saw a “pristine trap" hit. They were able
> to identify the specific address as the company provides the full text of
> the message. They had recent (within a few weeks) click data from that
> address and a purchase within a few months.

Can you give some hint about the spamtrap network? I don't need the
full name website or anything else, just something that let someone
that know the spamtrap networks understand who you are talking about.
Did the spamtrap network publish a document about how they classify
their spamtraps? Some of them do and clearly states how many months
they keep a 5xx error before turning the domain into a spamtrap.

> Folks I trust have also shared similar stories with me. Addresses that are
> traps show click activity the week before.

I hear many folks sharing many stories.. unfortunately House told me
that everybody lies, so I always try to verify, when I can.

> No, I don’t have permission to share examples. But this was discussed at
> M3AAWG earlier this month and multiple people confirmed they had evidence.

No need for full examples.. md5/sha1 of the lowercased domain or
md5/sha1 of the first lowercased mx server or md5/sha1 of the IP that
received the email would be enough to share your knowledge only to
others that already know about the network.

Stefano

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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Laura Atkins]

> On Mar 7, 2018, at 12:12 PM, Stefano Bagnara  wrote:
> 
> On 7 March 2018 at 20:25, David Carriger
>  wrote:
>> In the worst examples I've seen, the domain went from a legitimate mail
>> server to a trap network in the same day, with no time for bounces in
>> between.
> 
> Are you 100% sure? Which trap network? How did you find it was a trap?
> Can you share anything so that we can check for similar occourences
> and look for third party confirmations?

There are companies that have commercialized spamtraps and at least 2 of the 
delivery monitoring companies will tell you when you’ve hit a trap. In other 
cases, some compliance folks will data mine to find spamtrap domains when a 
blacklist is telling them that they are listed due to spamtrap hits. I’m pretty 
sure I’m not the only person who has identified various spamtrap accounts over 
the years. 

In one instance with a client, they were using one of the aforementioned 
delivery monitoring companies and saw a “pristine trap" hit. They were able to 
identify the specific address as the company provides the full text of the 
message. They had recent (within a few weeks) click data from that address and 
a purchase within a few months. 

Folks I trust have also shared similar stories with me. Addresses that are 
traps show click activity the week before. 

No, I don’t have permission to share examples. But this was discussed at M3AAWG 
earlier this month and multiple people confirmed they had evidence. 

laura 

-- 
Having an Email Crisis?  We can help! 800 823-9674 

Laura Atkins
Word to the Wise
la...@wordtothewise.com
(650) 437-0741  

Email Delivery Blog: https://wordtothewise.com/blog 







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Re: [mailop] SCL Rating Level of consideration at Hotmail

[Michael Wise via mailop]

That's a per-email issue, and they wouldn't typically look at it.
It's all about what the Black Box known as SmartScreen thinks about the 
traffic, and that's based on Features of the email, domain rep, and other 
factors.

Aloha,
Michael.
--
Michael J Wise
Microsoft Corporation| Spam Analysis
"Your Spam Specimen Has Been Processed."
Got the Junk Mail Reporting 
Tool ?

From: mailop  On Behalf Of Tony Rose
Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 11:49 AM
To: mailop@mailop.org
Subject: [mailop] SCL Rating Level of consideration at Hotmail


Hi,



Does anyone on the list know how much creedence the Outlook Deliverability 
Support Team puts into the Spam Confidence Level?

I have seen quite a few messages still get filtered into the junk folder with a 
SCL of 1.



-kildrone



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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Michael Wise via mailop]

And is it on-going?

From time to time, misteaks happen.

Aloha,
Michael.
--
Michael J Wise
Microsoft Corporation| Spam Analysis
"Your Spam Specimen Has Been Processed."
Got the Junk Mail Reporting 
Tool ?



-Original Message-
From: mailop  On Behalf Of Stefano Bagnara
Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 12:12 PM
To: Aaron C. de Bruyn via mailop 
Subject: Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators



On 7 March 2018 at 20:25, David Carriger 
> wrote:

> In the worst examples I've seen, the domain went from a legitimate

> mail server to a trap network in the same day, with no time for

> bounces in between.



Are you 100% sure? Which trap network? How did you find it was a trap?

Can you share anything so that we can check for similar occourences and look 
for third party confirmations?



Stefano



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Re: [mailop] SCL Rating Level of consideration at Hotmail

[Stefano Bagnara]

On 7 March 2018 at 20:48, Tony Rose  wrote:
> Does anyone on the list know how much creedence the Outlook Deliverability
> Support Team puts into the Spam Confidence Level?
>
> I have seen quite a few messages still get filtered into the junk folder
> with a SCL of 1.

AFAIK an High SCL may cause your message to be classified as junk, but
not viceversa.
Also an High BCL may cause your message to be classified as junk, but
not viceversa.

There are indipendent factors: being safe on one of them doesn't save
you from the other scores/filters.


Stefano

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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Stefano Bagnara]

On 7 March 2018 at 20:25, David Carriger
 wrote:
> In the worst examples I've seen, the domain went from a legitimate mail
> server to a trap network in the same day, with no time for bounces in
> between.

Are you 100% sure? Which trap network? How did you find it was a trap?
Can you share anything so that we can check for similar occourences
and look for third party confirmations?

Stefano

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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Steve Atkins]

> On Mar 7, 2018, at 11:53 AM, Michael Wise via mailop  
> wrote:
> 
>  
> I thought there was a BCP on SpamTraps that if they were automatic, they had 
> to 5xx all traffic for 6 months?

https://www.m3aawg.org/spmtrp

It does discuss some of the issues, and advises 5xx SMTP-level rejection for 
twelve contiguous months (while warning that even that won't turn your spamtrap 
data into 100% gold).

Cheers,
  Steve

>  
> Aloha,
> Michael.
> --
> Michael J Wise
> Microsoft Corporation| Spam Analysis
> "Your Spam Specimen Has Been Processed."
> Got the Junk Mail Reporting Tool ?
>  
> From: mailop  On Behalf Of David Carriger
> Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 11:26 AM
> To: Brett Schenker ; Aaron C. de Bruyn via mailop 
> 
> Subject: Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators
>  
> I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I've seen cases where a legitimate 
> domain name will expire and be converted to a spam trap within a week. Then 
> the original domain owner will renew it before it goes back to the registry, 
> and it will point back to its pre-expiry MX records.
> 
>  
> 
> In the worst examples I've seen, the domain went from a legitimate mail 
> server to a trap network in the same day, with no time for bounces in between.
> 
>  
> 
> List cleaning can certainly be used by unscrupulous marketers, and I'm 
> opposed to that use of it. On the other hand, what should we tell a good 
> marketer who is sending to confirmed, engaged addresses that have converted 
> into traps overnight?
> 
> From: mailop  on behalf of Brett Schenker 
> 
> Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 11:41:55 AM
> To: Aaron C. de Bruyn via mailop
> Subject: Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators
>  
> I work in the nonprofit/political space and while I can see uses to make sure 
> offline email list building (think people on a corner asking you to sign 
> up/sign a petition) has had the addresses typed in correctly, list 
> washing/validating is unfortunately being used by more orgs and campaigns as 
> a way to scrub their list instead of spending time and looking at engagement 
> instead. They think it'll get rid of spam traps and they can keep sending to 
> the unengaged portion of their list.
>  
> The habit seems to be driven by consultants in the space but I also know 
> there's a lot of these services that have approached me offering kickbacks, I 
> mean affiliate status so that we can profit off of the use.
>  
> It's a hard uphill battle against this.
>  
> On Wed, Mar 7, 2018 at 12:20 PM, Steve Atkins  wrote:
> >
> >> Also, if I'm not mistaking, list-validation services are mainly targeting
> >> online businesses, so even if the there might be legit cases, I doubt the
> >> biggest part of their revenues is.
> >
> > I'm not really familiar with their revenue model but I do know that for
> > some of them, spammers and rogue marketers absolutely do not make up the
> > majority of their client base, if at all.
> 
> They don't describe themselves that way, for sure. But the business model
> is to take lists of email addresses of variable quality, then to wash those 
> lists
> through a validation service, then send to them through an ESP.
> 
> The only value of the validation service here is to hide the quality and
> provenance of the list from the ESP. It doesn't change anything else.
> That's typically behaviour from a marketer who doesn't think the ESP
> would continue to work with them if they saw the quality of their lists.
> 
> Cheers,
>   Steve
> ___
> mailop mailing list
> mailop@mailop.org
> https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
> 
> 
>  
> -- 
> Brett Schenker
> Man of Many Things, Including
> 5B Consulting - http://www.5bconsulting.com
> Graphic Policy - http://www.graphicpolicy.com
> 
> Twitter - http://twitter.com/bhschenker
> LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/brettschenker
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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Steve Atkins]

> On Mar 7, 2018, at 11:25 AM, David Carriger  
> wrote:
> 
> I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I've seen cases where a legitimate 
> domain name will expire and be converted to a spam trap within a week. Then 
> the original domain owner will renew it before it goes back to the registry, 
> and it will point back to its pre-expiry MX records.
> 
> In the worst examples I've seen, the domain went from a legitimate mail 
> server to a trap network in the same day, with no time for bounces in between.
> 
> List cleaning can certainly be used by unscrupulous marketers, and I'm 
> opposed to that use of it. On the other hand, what should we tell a good 
> marketer who is sending to confirmed, engaged addresses that have converted 
> into traps overnight?

Step 1: Is their mail bouncing / being marked as spam? No? Stop here.

Step 2: Is their mail bouncing / being marked as spam *because* you hit those 
spamtraps? (It's common that people who hit spamtraps also have their mail 
rejected, but that's correlation not causation) No? Stop here.

Step 3: Contact the reputation provider, ask politely "WTF, dudes and 
dudettes?". It may be a cock-up; it usually is. If they acknowledge the issue, 
stop here.

Step 4: Those aren't legitimate spam traps, the company operating them has 
terrible data quality and they're probably not being widely used. Check *again* 
whether the mail is bouncing because of this reputation data.

Step 5: Reach out to ISPs using the data and encourage them not to do so, or to 
push back on the reputation provider to fix their processes.

Step 6: Public name + shame.

There are cases where unscrupulous spamtrap operators do Bad Things, but they 
usually get found out and called out on their behaviour. And it's really rather 
rare that it happens with reputation providers who are widely relevant to 
delivery decisions.

Cheers,
  Steve


> From: mailop  on behalf of Brett Schenker 
> 
> Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 11:41:55 AM
> To: Aaron C. de Bruyn via mailop
> Subject: Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators
>  
> I work in the nonprofit/political space and while I can see uses to make sure 
> offline email list building (think people on a corner asking you to sign 
> up/sign a petition) has had the addresses typed in correctly, list 
> washing/validating is unfortunately being used by more orgs and campaigns as 
> a way to scrub their list instead of spending time and looking at engagement 
> instead. They think it'll get rid of spam traps and they can keep sending to 
> the unengaged portion of their list.
> 
> The habit seems to be driven by consultants in the space but I also know 
> there's a lot of these services that have approached me offering kickbacks, I 
> mean affiliate status so that we can profit off of the use.
> 
> It's a hard uphill battle against this.
> 
> On Wed, Mar 7, 2018 at 12:20 PM, Steve Atkins  wrote:
> >
> >> Also, if I'm not mistaking, list-validation services are mainly targeting
> >> online businesses, so even if the there might be legit cases, I doubt the
> >> biggest part of their revenues is.
> >
> > I'm not really familiar with their revenue model but I do know that for
> > some of them, spammers and rogue marketers absolutely do not make up the
> > majority of their client base, if at all.
> 
> They don't describe themselves that way, for sure. But the business model
> is to take lists of email addresses of variable quality, then to wash those 
> lists
> through a validation service, then send to them through an ESP.
> 
> The only value of the validation service here is to hide the quality and
> provenance of the list from the ESP. It doesn't change anything else.
> That's typically behaviour from a marketer who doesn't think the ESP
> would continue to work with them if they saw the quality of their lists.
> 
> Cheers,
>   Steve
> ___
> mailop mailing list
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Brett Schenker
> Man of Many Things, Including
> 5B Consulting - http://www.5bconsulting.com
> Graphic Policy - http://www.graphicpolicy.com
> 
> Twitter - http://twitter.com/bhschenker
> LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/brettschenker
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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Michael Wise via mailop]

I thought there was a BCP on SpamTraps that if they were automatic, they had to 
5xx all traffic for 6 months?

Aloha,
Michael.
--
Michael J Wise
Microsoft Corporation| Spam Analysis
"Your Spam Specimen Has Been Processed."
Got the Junk Mail Reporting 
Tool ?

From: mailop  On Behalf Of David Carriger
Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 11:26 AM
To: Brett Schenker ; Aaron C. de Bruyn via mailop 

Subject: Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators


I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I've seen cases where a legitimate domain 
name will expire and be converted to a spam trap within a week. Then the 
original domain owner will renew it before it goes back to the registry, and it 
will point back to its pre-expiry MX records.



In the worst examples I've seen, the domain went from a legitimate mail server 
to a trap network in the same day, with no time for bounces in between.



List cleaning can certainly be used by unscrupulous marketers, and I'm opposed 
to that use of it. On the other hand, what should we tell a good marketer who 
is sending to confirmed, engaged addresses that have converted into traps 
overnight?


From: mailop > on 
behalf of Brett Schenker >
Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 11:41:55 AM
To: Aaron C. de Bruyn via mailop
Subject: Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

I work in the nonprofit/political space and while I can see uses to make sure 
offline email list building (think people on a corner asking you to sign 
up/sign a petition) has had the addresses typed in correctly, list 
washing/validating is unfortunately being used by more orgs and campaigns as a 
way to scrub their list instead of spending time and looking at engagement 
instead. They think it'll get rid of spam traps and they can keep sending to 
the unengaged portion of their list.

The habit seems to be driven by consultants in the space but I also know 
there's a lot of these services that have approached me offering kickbacks, I 
mean affiliate status so that we can profit off of the use.

It's a hard uphill battle against this.

On Wed, Mar 7, 2018 at 12:20 PM, Steve Atkins 
> wrote:
>
>> Also, if I'm not mistaking, list-validation services are mainly targeting
>> online businesses, so even if the there might be legit cases, I doubt the
>> biggest part of their revenues is.
>
> I'm not really familiar with their revenue model but I do know that for
> some of them, spammers and rogue marketers absolutely do not make up the
> majority of their client base, if at all.

They don't describe themselves that way, for sure. But the business model
is to take lists of email addresses of variable quality, then to wash those 
lists
through a validation service, then send to them through an ESP.

The only value of the validation service here is to hide the quality and
provenance of the list from the ESP. It doesn't change anything else.
That's typically behaviour from a marketer who doesn't think the ESP
would continue to work with them if they saw the quality of their lists.

Cheers,
  Steve
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Brett Schenker
Man of Many Things, Including
5B Consulting - 
http://www.5bconsulting.com
Graphic Policy - 
http://www.graphicpolicy.com

Twitter - 

[mailop] SCL Rating Level of consideration at Hotmail

[Tony Rose]

Hi,


Does anyone on the list know how much creedence the Outlook Deliverability 
Support Team puts into the Spam Confidence Level?

I have seen quite a few messages still get filtered into the junk folder with a 
SCL of 1.


-kildrone


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[mailop] Heads-up if you're running exim

[Rich Kulawiec]

400k servers may be at risk of serious code-execution attacks. Patch now

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/03/code-execution-flaw-in-exim-imperils-400k-machines-have-you-patched/


---rsk

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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[David Carriger]

I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I've seen cases where a legitimate domain 
name will expire and be converted to a spam trap within a week. Then the 
original domain owner will renew it before it goes back to the registry, and it 
will point back to its pre-expiry MX records.


In the worst examples I've seen, the domain went from a legitimate mail server 
to a trap network in the same day, with no time for bounces in between.


List cleaning can certainly be used by unscrupulous marketers, and I'm opposed 
to that use of it. On the other hand, what should we tell a good marketer who 
is sending to confirmed, engaged addresses that have converted into traps 
overnight?


From: mailop  on behalf of Brett Schenker 

Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 11:41:55 AM
To: Aaron C. de Bruyn via mailop
Subject: Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

I work in the nonprofit/political space and while I can see uses to make sure 
offline email list building (think people on a corner asking you to sign 
up/sign a petition) has had the addresses typed in correctly, list 
washing/validating is unfortunately being used by more orgs and campaigns as a 
way to scrub their list instead of spending time and looking at engagement 
instead. They think it'll get rid of spam traps and they can keep sending to 
the unengaged portion of their list.

The habit seems to be driven by consultants in the space but I also know 
there's a lot of these services that have approached me offering kickbacks, I 
mean affiliate status so that we can profit off of the use.

It's a hard uphill battle against this.

On Wed, Mar 7, 2018 at 12:20 PM, Steve Atkins 
> wrote:
>
>> Also, if I'm not mistaking, list-validation services are mainly targeting
>> online businesses, so even if the there might be legit cases, I doubt the
>> biggest part of their revenues is.
>
> I'm not really familiar with their revenue model but I do know that for
> some of them, spammers and rogue marketers absolutely do not make up the
> majority of their client base, if at all.

They don't describe themselves that way, for sure. But the business model
is to take lists of email addresses of variable quality, then to wash those 
lists
through a validation service, then send to them through an ESP.

The only value of the validation service here is to hide the quality and
provenance of the list from the ESP. It doesn't change anything else.
That's typically behaviour from a marketer who doesn't think the ESP
would continue to work with them if they saw the quality of their lists.

Cheers,
  Steve
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Brett Schenker
Man of Many Things, Including
5B Consulting - http://www.5bconsulting.com
Graphic Policy - http://www.graphicpolicy.com

Twitter - http://twitter.com/bhschenker
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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Michael Wise via mailop]

I can see a one-shot pass to validate an email address that was just added (and 
then there’s the whole question of hitting, “First Contact” limits…), but 
trying to guess the address? Um, No. Also, no further contact at all if they do 
not respond.

That, plus making sure to send something wanted to the recipient once a month, 
and gosh darned it, doing BOUNCE PROCESSING … will make many problems 9like 
spamtraps) go away.

Or So I’m Told.[tm][sm]

Aloha,
Michael.
--
Michael J Wise
Microsoft Corporation| Spam Analysis
"Your Spam Specimen Has Been Processed."
Got the Junk Mail Reporting 
Tool ?

From: mailop  On Behalf Of Brett Schenker
Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 10:42 AM
To: Aaron C. de Bruyn via mailop 
Subject: Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

I work in the nonprofit/political space and while I can see uses to make sure 
offline email list building (think people on a corner asking you to sign 
up/sign a petition) has had the addresses typed in correctly, list 
washing/validating is unfortunately being used by more orgs and campaigns as a 
way to scrub their list instead of spending time and looking at engagement 
instead. They think it'll get rid of spam traps and they can keep sending to 
the unengaged portion of their list.

The habit seems to be driven by consultants in the space but I also know 
there's a lot of these services that have approached me offering kickbacks, I 
mean affiliate status so that we can profit off of the use.

It's a hard uphill battle against this.

On Wed, Mar 7, 2018 at 12:20 PM, Steve Atkins 
> wrote:
>
>> Also, if I'm not mistaking, list-validation services are mainly targeting
>> online businesses, so even if the there might be legit cases, I doubt the
>> biggest part of their revenues is.
>
> I'm not really familiar with their revenue model but I do know that for
> some of them, spammers and rogue marketers absolutely do not make up the
> majority of their client base, if at all.

They don't describe themselves that way, for sure. But the business model
is to take lists of email addresses of variable quality, then to wash those 
lists
through a validation service, then send to them through an ESP.

The only value of the validation service here is to hide the quality and
provenance of the list from the ESP. It doesn't change anything else.
That's typically behaviour from a marketer who doesn't think the ESP
would continue to work with them if they saw the quality of their lists.

Cheers,
  Steve
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Brett Schenker
Man of Many Things, Including
5B Consulting - 
http://www.5bconsulting.com
Graphic Policy - 
http://www.graphicpolicy.com

Twitter - 
http://twitter.com/bhschenker
LinkedIn - 
http://www.linkedin.com/in/brettschenker
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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Brett Schenker]

I work in the nonprofit/political space and while I can see uses to make
sure offline email list building (think people on a corner asking you to
sign up/sign a petition) has had the addresses typed in correctly, list
washing/validating is unfortunately being used by more orgs and campaigns
as a way to scrub their list instead of spending time and looking at
engagement instead. They think it'll get rid of spam traps and they can
keep sending to the unengaged portion of their list.

The habit seems to be driven by consultants in the space but I also know
there's a lot of these services that have approached me offering kickbacks,
I mean affiliate status so that we can profit off of the use.

It's a hard uphill battle against this.

On Wed, Mar 7, 2018 at 12:20 PM, Steve Atkins  wrote:

> >
> >> Also, if I'm not mistaking, list-validation services are mainly
> targeting
> >> online businesses, so even if the there might be legit cases, I doubt
> the
> >> biggest part of their revenues is.
> >
> > I'm not really familiar with their revenue model but I do know that for
> > some of them, spammers and rogue marketers absolutely do not make up the
> > majority of their client base, if at all.
>
> They don't describe themselves that way, for sure. But the business model
> is to take lists of email addresses of variable quality, then to wash
> those lists
> through a validation service, then send to them through an ESP.
>
> The only value of the validation service here is to hide the quality and
> provenance of the list from the ESP. It doesn't change anything else.
> That's typically behaviour from a marketer who doesn't think the ESP
> would continue to work with them if they saw the quality of their lists.
>
> Cheers,
>   Steve
> ___
> mailop mailing list
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> https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
>



-- 
Brett Schenker
Man of Many Things, Including
5B Consulting - http://www.5bconsulting.com
Graphic Policy - http://www.graphicpolicy.com

Twitter - http://twitter.com/bhschenker
LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/brettschenker
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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Steve Atkins]

> 
>> Also, if I'm not mistaking, list-validation services are mainly targeting
>> online businesses, so even if the there might be legit cases, I doubt the
>> biggest part of their revenues is.
> 
> I'm not really familiar with their revenue model but I do know that for
> some of them, spammers and rogue marketers absolutely do not make up the
> majority of their client base, if at all.

They don't describe themselves that way, for sure. But the business model
is to take lists of email addresses of variable quality, then to wash those 
lists
through a validation service, then send to them through an ESP.

The only value of the validation service here is to hide the quality and
provenance of the list from the ESP. It doesn't change anything else.
That's typically behaviour from a marketer who doesn't think the ESP
would continue to work with them if they saw the quality of their lists.

Cheers,
  Steve
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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Ken O'Driscoll via mailop]

On Wed, 2018-03-07 at 12:31 +, Benjamin BILLON wrote:
> Good point.
> However, things change, and this norm should evolve with the involved
> technologies; also, maybe this data quality process, if abusing third-
> parties resources (like RCPT TO: for nothing), is not an acceptable
> process.

I agree and I don't actually think attempting delivery is necessary for
data quality purposes. Being able to go beyond basic typos and look at the
structure of the address is usually enough and some of those service do a
fine job of that.

In fact, I'd go as far to say many such organisations are probably only
using validation services because of the lack of depth with validator
classes in the public domain. If someone was to offer a validation service
that didn't poke SMTP servers I'd say that would work in most cases.

> Offline acquisition of online-related data (an email address, for
> instance) definitely is odd by definition. I don't know, just from the
> top of my head, print a QR code printed on the paper so users could
> register online, from their smartphone.

I don't think it's really an engineering problem. There are always going to
be times where an email address is given or updated offline. Paper forms
are one example but there are others; think of people who need to interact
with government services but don't have a fixed address and access their
email from Internet cafes. There are many scenarios when email is a wanted
means of communication but it is not possible to confirm in real-time. 

> Also, if I'm not mistaking, list-validation services are mainly targeting
> online businesses, so even if the there might be legit cases, I doubt the
> biggest part of their revenues is.

I'm not really familiar with their revenue model but I do know that for
some of them, spammers and rogue marketers absolutely do not make up the
majority of their client base, if at all.

Ken.

-- 
Ken O'Driscoll / We Monitor Email
t: +353 1 254 9400 | w: www.wemonitoremail.com

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Re: [mailop] Anyone from Gmail ?

[Laura Atkins]

> On Mar 6, 2018, at 3:48 AM, Vaibhav  wrote:
> 
> Currently we are sending emails with same setup with avg. 5% OR ( might few 
> users are getting email in inbox ) where domain still carries low reputation 
> & IP's are in HIGH reputation. Its been 15 days where we don't see any 
> improvement here.
> 
> Can anyone help me over here in terms of what is going wrong here ?


If the IPs are high and the domain is low, then you need to look at mail from 
different IPs also pointing to / using / signing with / authenticating that 
domain.

laura 

-- 
Having an Email Crisis?  We can help! 800 823-9674 

Laura Atkins
Word to the Wise
la...@wordtothewise.com
(650) 437-0741  

Email Delivery Blog: https://wordtothewise.com/blog 







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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Stefano Bagnara]

On 7 March 2018 at 13:20, Ken O'Driscoll via mailop  wrote:
> There are some industries where offline data acquisition is the norm and
> validation is seen as part of the data quality process.

"norm" is not so good as a "valid" reason:
- what's the point of *validation* for these industries?
- what do they get from "cleaning" using a list validation service
that they cannot get by simply sending and analyzing errors?

The first answers I can think about all points to prevent the receiver
MTA to classify you as spammer by hiding your dirty clothes, and this
sounds more dark than light...

1) Most validation service apply a pricing that is higher than what it
will cost to send a real email
2) If their offline acquisition is so bad to require a validation to
avoid spam filters then they are probably extoring the email address
in the process or needs a better way to collect the email address
because if the validation prune stuff, it means they are loosing money
collecting fake data.,. so the cure is not the validation.
3) We could open a big topic about the quality of this validation
services: have you ever tried cleaning a list of your active/working
email addresses? I did and the result was a disaster (working and
engaged emails removed, spamtraps that I added to the list by purpose
left in). So, when they clean, at least with some of the services I
tried, they remove also valid recipients. (e.g: some of them removed
my own @apache.org valid email address as a spamtrap)

As per GDPR if you collect offline data and you will pass this data to
an email validation service then, when you acquire their consent, you
will also have to tell them the email validator service that will
receive their data, then you also have one more data-processor to take
into account into your GDPR diligence... So, don't move the personal
data around to third parties unless this really gives you a real gain.

Sending a confirmation email using the same tool that you will use to
send the communications for which you acquired their consent in the
first place will be enough and will work fine without the need for a
validation service.

Even if you collected the email offline and in bulk, there will be
some moment in future when you will have to send an email to them,
right? So
- if you want the email address (and the "consent") to be confirmed
send a "confirmation request email" and this will also validate the
email.
- If you don't like COI then let your fist email to be the "validation".
- Even if you don't like COI I suggest you to send an email to inform
them their address has been transcripted and give them a fast way to
tell you that they are not the right recipients and you trascripted a
wrong email.

All of them sounds better than a "third party validation", if you work
in the "consent-based" world.

Stefano

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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Benjamin BILLON]

Good point.
However, things change, and this norm should evolve with the involved 
technologies; also, maybe this data quality process, if abusing third-parties 
resources (like RCPT TO: for nothing), is not an acceptable process.
Offline acquisition of online-related data (an email address, for instance) 
definitely is odd by definition. I don't know, just from the top of my head, 
print a QR code printed on the paper so users could register online, from their 
smartphone.

Also, if I'm not mistaking, list-validation services are mainly targeting 
online businesses, so even if the there might be legit cases, I doubt the 
biggest part of their revenues is.

--

Benjamin Billon

-Original Message-
From: mailop [mailto:mailop-boun...@mailop.org] On Behalf Of Ken O'Driscoll via 
mailop
Sent: Wednesday, 7 March, 2018 20:20
To: mailop@mailop.org
Subject: Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

On Wed, 2018-03-07 at 11:21 +, Benjamin BILLON wrote:
> To me the list-validators are dark grey hats. Their real-time service 
> can be legit. The rest, I don't see how.

There are some industries where offline data acquisition is the norm and 
validation is seen as part of the data quality process.

Insurance claim forms or change of contact details for $LEGACY_PROVIDER spring 
to mind.

Ken. 

--
Ken O'Driscoll / We Monitor Email
t: +353 1 254 9400 | w: www.wemonitoremail.com

Need to understand deliverability? Now there's a book:
www.wemonitoremail.com/book


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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Ken O'Driscoll via mailop]

On Wed, 2018-03-07 at 11:21 +, Benjamin BILLON wrote:
> To me the list-validators are dark grey hats. Their real-time service can
> be legit. The rest, I don't see how.

There are some industries where offline data acquisition is the norm and
validation is seen as part of the data quality process.

Insurance claim forms or change of contact details for $LEGACY_PROVIDER
spring to mind.

Ken. 

-- 
Ken O'Driscoll / We Monitor Email
t: +353 1 254 9400 | w: www.wemonitoremail.com

Need to understand deliverability? Now there's a book:
www.wemonitoremail.com/book


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Re: [mailop] Anyone from Gmail ?

[David Hofstee]

> Do you believe "open rate" metrics are that accurate?
That depends on the domain and the user-agent in question. Some load images
automatically when viewing the message.

>  If bulk senders routinely detect when a user opens messages, that user
is not following basic email safety principles
I am not sure how much tin-foil I can advise you to use. Tracking is
everywhere, in many forms. Not just in email newsletters. So I think this
discussion belongs somewhere else.

Yours,


David

On 6 March 2018 at 18:02, Bill Cole 
wrote:

> On 6 Mar 2018, at 9:09, David Hofstee wrote:
>
> Hi Vaibhav,
>>
>> So if you have 12% open rate.. It means that for  every (100/12 =) 8.3
>> emails you send, one is relevant. It is my expectation, maybe Brandon
>> knows
>> more, that your emails are not relevant enough. Is this really something
>> the subscribers asked for? Because they lack real engagement.
>>
>
> Do you believe "open rate" metrics are that accurate?
>
> As someone working mostly with non-broadcast B2B email, I have done a fair
> bit of user training and documentation focused on safe email practices. If
> bulk senders routinely detect when a user opens messages, that user is not
> following basic email safety principles.
>
>
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-- 
--
My opinion is mine.
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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Benjamin BILLON]

Wow, what did the CampaignMonitor folks eat? 
"Verifying emails is an email marketing best practice": guys, CONTEXT, please. 
Dropping catchy headlines like bombs is not making you any good. 
Then quoting someone about real-time verification in a part about "List decay" 
either his a badly orchestrated communication stunt, or pure stupidity.

> There *are* valid times to *validate* an email address in that manner
Yes, yes and yes. The only moment email validation is ok is real-time at the 
collection.
I've seen, to prevent typo domains, auto-completion or dropdown lists, first 
with most common domain names, then narrowing down to known domain names based 
on what the user it typing. No need to connect to anything to validate, here.
Then, to validate that the address is the right one, and that you're adding in 
your database the email address of the owner of the email address: confirmed 
opt-in. 
It's as simple as that. No need to think any further.

To me the list-validators are dark grey hats. Their real-time service can be 
legit. The rest, I don't see how.

--

Benjamin Billon

-Original Message-
From: mailop [mailto:mailop-boun...@mailop.org] On Behalf Of Stefano Bagnara
Sent: Wednesday, 7 March, 2018 17:13
To: mailop 
Subject: Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

On 2 March 2018 at 21:45, John Johnstone  
wrote:
> [...]
> It seems somebody gave some fairly purposeful thought into coming up 
> with the algorithms to generate these.  I'm curious to know what 
> peoples thinking is as to the hat color of these attempts.  
> Particularly if there are any opinions on the risk / need to block them.

Tools like hunter.io try to suggest you the "pattern" used by a company so that 
you can guess email address for named people, but they mainly use crawled data, 
so I think your suspect is findanyemail.net:
put a name and surname and your domain and it will try to guess the patterns 
and "verify" them.

That said, about the hat color

We're a small ESP and I think email validators/cleaners are making OUR life 
harder.

We can identify bad clients/customers as soon as they load their list if it 
contains very old expired domains, spamtraps, fake domains, emails like 
"e...@ail.jpg" or some .pdf TLD. Or we can identify "non confirmed" lists 
because of the presence of many typos domains. This let us block and vet the 
senders BEFORE they abuse our tool (and send spam).

But if they come with a cleaned list then it is harder for us and we have to do 
the first send in order to understand they are spammer, and sometimes when they 
have mostly b2b addresses it is hard because of missing FBLs from the providers 
and very low feedback from recipients that know it is spam.

I think that from a receiving MTA point of view, this is the same: if they hit 
your spamtraps (or simply invalid recipients) you have more chance to deal with 
them "correctly" and early.

So, from our point of view, bulk list validators are bad and I can't see a 
valid point to use them, but trying to trick the game (for short term spamming 
results).

That said, some ESP have a different opinion from me, as I just read this 
recent post:
https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2018/03/verifying-emails-win-win-email-marketing/

I'm interested in how receivers see this email verification tools and how many 
of them deployed protections from them (e.g: identify their IPs and refuse or 
fake the answers to their requests or anything else).

Stefano

PS: between the many email verification tools, Kickbox
(https://kickbox.com/about) have a claim "Kickbox is a white hat service 
provider".

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Re: [mailop] Hat color of list washers / validators

[Stefano Bagnara]

On 2 March 2018 at 21:45, John Johnstone
 wrote:
> [...]
> It seems somebody gave some fairly purposeful thought into coming up with
> the algorithms to generate these.  I'm curious to know what peoples thinking
> is as to the hat color of these attempts.  Particularly if there are any
> opinions on the risk / need to block them.

Tools like hunter.io try to suggest you the "pattern" used by a
company so that you can guess email address for named people, but they
mainly use crawled data, so I think your suspect is findanyemail.net:
put a name and surname and your domain and it will try to guess the
patterns and "verify" them.

That said, about the hat color

We're a small ESP and I think email validators/cleaners are making OUR
life harder.

We can identify bad clients/customers as soon as they load their list
if it contains very old expired domains, spamtraps, fake domains,
emails like "e...@ail.jpg" or some .pdf TLD. Or we can identify "non
confirmed" lists because of the presence of many typos domains. This
let us block and vet the senders BEFORE they abuse our tool (and send
spam).

But if they come with a cleaned list then it is harder for us and we
have to do the first send in order to understand they are spammer, and
sometimes when they have mostly b2b addresses it is hard because of
missing FBLs from the providers and very low feedback from recipients
that know it is spam.

I think that from a receiving MTA point of view, this is the same: if
they hit your spamtraps (or simply invalid recipients) you have more
chance to deal with them "correctly" and early.

So, from our point of view, bulk list validators are bad and I can't
see a valid point to use them, but trying to trick the game (for short
term spamming results).

That said, some ESP have a different opinion from me, as I just read
this recent post:
https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2018/03/verifying-emails-win-win-email-marketing/

I'm interested in how receivers see this email verification tools and
how many of them deployed protections from them (e.g: identify their
IPs and refuse or fake the answers to their requests or anything
else).

Stefano

PS: between the many email verification tools, Kickbox
(https://kickbox.com/about) have a claim "Kickbox is a white hat
service provider".

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