White list
If a black list entry blocks all your email marketing
communications, a white list entry sanctions your
right to enter recipients' inbox without any risk
of being blocked.
A white list
is a list of email addresses, web site addresses,
or programs that are considered to be spam or
virus free. If you are in the white list, you
have a passport to enter any inbox you wish to.
It is a list of e-mail addresses or domain names
from which an e-mail blocking program will allow
messages to be received.
At least two
companies are selling access to "whitelists" that
promise to get corporate e-mail delivered, bypassing
the spam filters now used by Internet service
providers (ISPs). These two most prominent whitelists
are known as Habeas and Bonded Sender. Recently,
Microsoft announced that its MSN Hotmail e-mail
service will implement Bonded Sender to help it
distinguish legitimate e-mail from spam. ISIPP
Accreditation Database (IADB) may also be used
as whitelists. Many ISPs, notably AOL and Yahoo!,
maintain their own internal whitelists.
Habeas Whitelist
The Habeas system relies on a short string
of words that's embedded into each e-mail by senders
of "opt-in" mailings. This string is invisible
to recipients, but it can clearly be seen by e-mail
servers in the "headers" that are used to route
all messages across the Internet.
Bonded Sender
Whitelist
Bonded Sender requires bulk mail senders to
post a cash bond worth several hundred to several
thousand dollars, based on volume. Each sender
is then required to keep complaints that reach
Bonded Sender down to one per month per 1 million
e-mails sent. Above that, and a $20 penalty is
charged against the bond for each complainant.
How to be
part of a whitelist?
When a prospect signs up to receive an email
from you, ask them to confirm. At the time of
confirmation, ask the recipient to add your domain
or address to their white list.
-
They might
have the option of adding your email address
in the white list.
-
Or, they
need to contact their systems administrator
to add your email address or domain to the
company's white list.
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Or, you
contact top-tier ISPs to ensure that you're
taking the right steps to get your e-mail
delivered and to be added in their white list.
-
You can
register with Habeas or Bonded Sende
Open Relay
Open Mail Relays are e-mail servers that support
Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP). It allows
a third party to relay e-mail messages, i.e.,
sending and/or receiving e-mail that is not for
or from a local user.
Spammers are
able to locate accessible third-party mail relay
servers by using automated tools that are readily
available on the Internet. By relaying mail through
several open relay mail servers at the same time,
it is possible to flood the Internet with large
amounts of scrap mails in a very short period
of time before being detected.
If your mail
server is not enabled for SMTP authentication
(to protect it from unauthorized users)--it can
become an open relay, allowing anyone on the Internet
to send email to any destination, as a result
your domain IP address is blacklisted.
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