[thelist] Blacklisted?

David Adams dpadams at island-data.com
Mon May 28 13:57:47 CDT 2001


> I just received a bounce from one of my lists.  The bounce in itself is not
> the problem, but the fact that it says blacklisted in it is.  I have never
> seen a header with that in it.  Is this something I should worry about or
> has the people who the email is going to been blacklisted?

This error often means that your outgoing mail server has been blacklisted.
Outgoing mail servers can be configured as 'open' or 'closed' relays. An
open relay lets pretty much anyone connect and insert mail into the
Internet. There are some legitimate uses for open relays but spammers abuse
them. In response, several organizations maintain databases of open relays.
ISPs often subscribe to one of these databases and configure their mail
servers to automatically reject email coming from a blacklisted server.
Unfortunately, the good mail (yours) gets rejected with the bad (spam.)
Bummer. If this is the problem in your case, there are only two solutions:

1. Get your mail provider to close the relay. (It then takes some time for
the blacklisting to be reversed.)

2. Get a different mail provider.

Here are the server lookup pages for two of the major SPAM relay databases:

  MAPS
  http://mail-abuse.org/cgi-bin/nph-rss

  ORBS
  http://www.orbs.org/verify_1.html

Note: I only know a bit about this as I spent a few months struggling with
this problem. Hopefully a mail administrator will offer more specifics and
correct any errors I've made.

------------------------------
  David Adams
  Island Data Management
  Kailua, HI 96734
  dpadams at island-data.com
  http://www.island-data.com/
  808/263-2905
------------------------------





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