Matt has posted a bit more about the SenderScore Blacklist, following up on my post about the changes at Comcast. George Bilbrey, VP and General Manager, for Return Path followed up with him to explain a bit more about the blacklist. George says:
- The blacklist is based on more than the summary Sender Score on average, IPs on the blacklist have a score much, much less than 70.
- There is not a direct relationship between the blacklist and Sender Score Certified.
- You can’t buy yourself off the blacklist with Sender Score Certified and it is not possible to be on both the blacklist and qualify for SSC.
- We don’t pitch any of our services to folks who have contacted us because they have been blocked.
Matt is looking for experiences from people. My experiences are as follows.
- My client that was blocked by Comcast, with the reject message referencing the SenderScore blacklist, had a SenderScore of 65.
- Comcast suggests that senders sign up for the Comcast FBL as part of the remediation for a SenderScore block. The Comcast FBL is a service provided by ReturnPath. During the signup process at a ReturnPath branded website, there is a note that says, “We may email you about your registration, service updates, and information on existing and new Return Path products.”
I know just how difficult it is to run a blacklist while offering services to those who are blacklisted. My first job in the delivery arena was trying to manage the services division at MAPS (now Trend Micro). MAPS was just offering a range of blacklists and outsourced abuse management services.
ReturnPath is offering a whole host of services. They are a reputation service, they are a blacklist service, they are a whitelist service, they are a FBL service. On top of all that, they are also an acquisition mailer and an email list provider.
Based on my own experience it is very difficult to sell services to companies that you are blacklisting. It is also difficult to sell services to companies you are directly competing with. It remains to be seen if ReturnPath can successfully manage such a diverse and conflicting range of services.
A few weeks back I posted about changes a client of mine was making in order to improve their IP reputation and their delivery.
They are now getting inbox delivery at the major ISPs. Their actions are up and they are seeing great results.
They did not implement all of my specific suggestions. Instead, they took the underlying advice, and modified it to fit their needs. They took my advice to increase relevancy and engage their recipients, then applied their own knowledge of their recipients and made changes to their mailings. The result is lower complaints, better delivery and more responsiveness.
Clients are happy. Recipients are happy. Everything is good.
I can usually tell when one of the ISPs makes some change to their incoming spam filtering just by my call volume. The past few weeks the ISP in most of my calls has been Comcast. And, what do you know, they have made changes to how they are filtering email.
According to their bounce message, Comcast is using ReturnPath’s proprietary SenderScore product to filter mail. Reports on thresholds vary, but IPs with SenderScores of 70 and below have been blocked with messages similar to:
Remote host said: 554 IMTA06.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net comcast
10.01.01.01 Comcast BL009 Blocked for spam. Please see
http://www.comcast.net/help/faq/index.jsp?faq=SecurityMail_Policy19053
In addition to blocking based on SenderScore, Comcast also appears to be blocking based on complaints from their users. Comcast is testing a feedback loop. I have heard from one FBL user that there are some kinks to work out, but that the FBL provider is working with them to resolve the problems.
This new process is a complete change from the previous way Comcast handled email blocking. Previously they were primarily using Brightmail to filter spam from their mail stream, now they are using complaints to identify bad mail. During the the transition mailers are seeing an increase in blocked email.
There are solutions. Use the forms Comcast directs you to use when they reject your mail. If there are extensive problems, talk to your delivery monitoring company or your delivery consultant. Most of us have the ability to escalate issues and talk to people internal to ISPs in order to determine if there is some specific problem and what you can do about it. But, don’t panic, Comcast doesn’t hate you, in fact, I expect these changes are going to better for everyone in the long run.
A couple articles came out today talking about ISP requirements and how to find them.
EmailInsider talks about ISP best practices and how merely complying with CAN-SPAM is not enough to get good delivery at the ISPs.
Meanwhile, over at ClickZ, Stefan talks about what the ISPs want from you and how to find the information online.
The Email Standards Project launched last week. This group is looking to lobby and encourage companies to make their email clients comply with HTML display standards. They are also identifying how different clients display email with HTML. Check out their website, and see what they’re doing.
I do apologize for the light blogging recently. I have a couple big deadlines on my plate. I hope to get back to regular blogging soon.
