On 2018-02-20 (08:30 MST), Rob McEwen <r...@invaluement.com> wrote: > > Spammers are starting to use this to evade spam filters,
This is not news. Spammers have been using shortness since 3 seconds after tinyurl.com launched. > Keep in mind that, if a marketer is doing things the right way, they should > have no need to obfuscate their own domain name. They should instead proudly > use it and not feel the need to hide behind Google's shortner. No, that is not at all true. The primary use of a shorter is to shorten a long URL to something that someone can type in. Clicking a URL in an email is the height of stupidity, so having a short URL that someone can realistically type into a browser is much better. > Yes, there are many legitimate uses of Google's shortner, too. However, we > are now at a point where a VERY large % (a majority?) of uses of these headed > to a typical user's mailbox are egregious spams, and a significant additional > portion are likely-spams. Any evidence of this? > THEREFORE: If you like having NOT-blacklisted IPs, be advised that the > invaluement anti-spam DNSBL system is now adding "bad" points to the scoring > of all messages that use the "goo.gl" shortner, and we're amplifying other > "bad" points. Well, at least you are warning people. However, what you are doing is, frankly, dumb; if you think there's a huge problem, you can simply check the target URLs. -- I've always had a flair for stage directions.
