Definitions
“Return Path manages all aspects of our deliverability. We rely on Return Path to protect our email revenue by keeping our reputation intact and our inbox delivery rates high. You can't argue with a 22% increase and that translates directly into sales for us.”
Chris Woodward,
Manager E-commerce Content & Email - Orvis
The CAN-SPAM Act contains the legal definition of affirmative consent. The definition may be found at 15 U.S.C. 7702(1). The full definition is provided below. The term 'affirmative consent', when used with respect to a commercial electronic mail message, means that--
A blacklist (sometimes referred to as a blocklist) is a collection of domains or IP addresses meeting a certain criteria. Listing criteria and policies vary. Some blacklist examples include known spam sources, IP addresses found to be open relays or proxies, dynamic residential IP space, domains or IP addresses which do not comply with RFC standards. Email traffic then can be filtered against a blacklist to reject undesirable mail. Habeas has three categories for the blacklists it tracks in the Reputation Monitor. The high priority lists have well-defined, published listing and removal policies to which the list maintainers adhere consistently. In addition, the high priority lists have a significant impact on deliverability. Listings on the high priority lists tend to be more accurate and have fewer false positives. Medium priority lists still have somewhat aggressive listing policies, but they also have well-defined policies for removing an entry from the list. These medium-priority lists may have some impact on deliverability. The lowest priority lists have aggressive listing policies which may cause false positives.
Top 10 Email Blacklists:
Confirmed opt-in refers to an email address collection practice in which a person explicitly requests to be included on a list to receive email, and a confirmation email is subsequently sent to the recipient with a notification that some action is necessary before an email address will be added to the list. The recipient must respond or take other equivalent action in order to complete the subscription process. No messages other than the confirmation email are sent until the subscription process is completed.
This method is sometimes referred to as "closed loop opt-in", "double opt-in", or "verified opt-in".
DNS, Domain Name System, is a distributed database for storing information about hosts connected to the Internet. DNS is involved in almost all Internet interactions, including email and web browsing. The most common use for DNS is converting an alphanumeric domain name into a numeric string which can be interpreted by computers, but DNS serves other important functions as well, such as identifying the mail servers for a domain.
example.com IN A 192.168.50.94
The record above indicates that 192.168.50.94 is the IP address associated with the example.com domain.
example.com IN MX 10 192.168.50.95
The record above indicates that 192.168.50.95 is the IP address for the example.com mail server.
The DNS zone file is a specially formatted file containing information about a domain's resources such as mail servers and web servers. The primary purpose of a zone file is to provide the information necessary to convert an alphanumeric domain name into a numeric IP address.
An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique number associated with a networked device that allows connected devices to identify and communicate with each other across the Internet. Each device must have its own unique address, thus allowing information sent on behalf of a sender to indicate where to send it next, and for the receiver to know that it is the intended destination.
A Message Transfer Agent (MTA) accepts an email message from a client such as Outlook or Eudora, and then transmits that message across the Internet to a receiving MTA which then delivers the message to the recipient's mailbox. An MTA is also known as an email server. Microsoft Exchange Server and Sendmail are examples of MTAs.
An MX (mail exchanger) record is a type of DNS record which identifies the servers that receive email messages for a domain. MX records are stored in DNS zone files. An example of an MX record is below:
example.com IN MX 10 192.168.50.95
An open email relay occurs when an email server processes an email message where neither the sender nor the recipient is a local user. In this example, both the sender and the recipient are outside the local domain. The email server is an entirely unrelated third party to this exchange.
Although once common, open relays now are considered a security problem ripe for abuse and are blocked by ISPs.
Opt-in refers to an email address collection practice in which a recipient explicitly requests to be included on a list to receive email.
Opt-out refers to an email address collection practice in which those whose email addresses have been added to a mailing list must take action in order to be removed from the list. In this case, recipients have not given permission to receive communications from that sender and have not affirmatively requested to be included on a list to receive email.
Phishing is the act of sending an email to a recipient falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the recipient into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The email directs the recipient to visit a web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers. The web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user's information.
A realtime blacklist refers to a list that is updated on a regular basis and the changes are propagated immediately -- in real time. Almost all blacklists currently in operation may be considered realtime blacklists in this sense, although some lists are updated on a set schedule such as daily.
RBL ChecksHabeas has three categories for the real time blacklists it tracks in its Reputation Monitor. The high priority lists have well-defined, published listing and removal policies to which the list maintainers adhere consistently. In addition, the high priority lists have a significant impact on deliverability. Listings on the high priority lists tend to be more accurate and have fewer false positives. Medium priority lists still have somewhat aggressive listing policies, but they also have well-defined policies for removing an entry from the list. These medium-priority lists may have some impact on deliverability. The lowest priority lists have aggressive listing policies which may cause false positives.
Benefits of Habeas Monitoring of Real Time Blacklists (RBL)
Originally, "Realtime Blackhole List" referred to the first blacklist which began operating on the Internet in 1997. That list is now known as the RBL. Today a realtime blacklist refers to a list that is updated on a regular basis and the changes are propagated immediately -- in real time. Almost all blacklists currently in operation may be considered realtime blacklists in this sense, although some lists are updated on a set schedule such as daily.
The primary purpose of the DNS system is to convert domain names such as example.com to numeric strings such as 1.2.3.4. Reverse DNS, as the name suggests, works in the opposite direction: numeric strings such as 1.2.3.4 are converted to domain names such as example.com. The information from a forward and reverse DNS lookup should match.
Properly configured reverse DNS is important for deliverability because AOL and other ISPs may reject messages lacking proper reverse DNS records.
Single opt-in refers to an email address collection practice in which a recipient explicitly requests to be included on a list to receive email, but the sender does not take any additional steps to ensure that the request came from a source authorized to provide the email address or that the address is valid.
A spam list is another name for a blacklist.
A spam list is a collection of domains or IP addresses meeting a certain criteria. Listing criteria and policies vary. Some spam list examples include known spam sources, IP addresses found to be open relays or proxies, dynamic residential IP space, domains or IP addresses which do not comply with RFC standards. Email traffic then can be filtered against a spam list to reject undesirable mail.
Habeas has three categories for the spam lists it tracks in the Reputation Monitor. The high priority lists have well-defined, published listing and removal policies to which the list maintainers adhere consistently. In addition, the high priority lists have a significant impact on deliverability. Listings on the high priority lists tend to be more accurate and have fewer false positives. Medium priority lists still have somewhat aggressive listing policies, but they also have well-defined policies for removing an entry from the list. These medium-priority lists may have some impact on deliverability. The lowest priority lists have aggressive listing policies which may cause false positives.
Top 10 Email Spam Lists:
Both the CAN-SPAM Act and the regulations the Federal Trade Commission issued for enforcement of the CAN-SPAM Act contain the legal definition of a transactional message. The definition from the CAN-SPAM Act may be found at 15 U.S.C. 7702(17) and the definition from the FTC regulations may be found at 16 C.F.R. 316.3(c). The full definition is provided below. (c) Transactional or relationship content of e-mail messages under the CAN-SPAM Act is content:
Transactional opt-in refers to an email address collection practice in which a vendor adds a customer to its mailing list because a transaction has taken place. In most cases, the customer has not explicitly requested to be included on an email list to receive commercial email. If the customer is notified at the point of collection that the address will be added to a mailing list, then addresses collected using this practice are eligible for SafeListing. However, if no notification is provided, Habeas considers this method of address collection equivalent to opt-out, and therefore not eligible for SafeListing.
A URI is a Uniform Resource Indicator. All URLs are also URIs. URLs are pointers to web pages.
