Feb 15 2008

E-Mail Spam Blacklist : Are You On One?

Filed under: Security » Spam, Service Providers » Email,

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What is an Email Spam Blacklist?

Spam blacklists are lists of IP addresses used to keep track of servers that have been known to send out large amounts of spam (unsolicited email). These IP's could come from your ISP (Internet Service Provider), since they typically offer email accounts and/or websites with their service plans. It's therefore not uncommon for spammers to take advantage of these accounts. Large ISP's especially are more likely to harbor spammers simply due to the large number of subscribers.

It's important to know if the IP address your sending mail from is on a blacklist, because it will impact how many people receive your emails. If you're sending an important email to someone, you want to make sure it arrives and doesn't end up in junk folder after junk folder. If you're running your own web server, you especially want to make sure your IP is not on a blacklist because you don't want your customers getting spam blocked. This will hurt your email service reputation. If you're a casual user with a free email address such as Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail, you also want to make sure you received an IP block that hasn't been blacklisted. While educational (.edu) email accounts are less susceptible to being blacklisted, no one is immune. Regardless of the origin of your email account, you want to make sure you haven't been blacklisted.

How Can You Tell If You're On a Spam Blacklist?

Visit the MX Toolbox Blacklist Check page and enter the IP address of your server to see if it's been blacklisted.

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I must admit, I do receive

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Tue, 2010-02-23 08:42.

I must admit, I do receive lots of spam each day and sometimes I'd like to report their IP's but I never do. Mail today offers a lot of filters and other options so we can get our spam in the spam folder so we don't have to see it everyday.
___________
Mathew Farney

Blacklist an IP block

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Fri, 2009-12-25 23:29.

This is not a good idea when everything can be a "source" of good money.

Which spam fighter to choose?

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Sat, 2009-05-09 06:25.

There are so many anti-spam utilities out there - is Spam Bully really the best? What do you guys think?

Spam blacklist

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Fri, 2009-03-27 11:30.

Ahhh, what a pain! Someone hacked into my Hotmail account - okay, it's probably my own fault, considering my password was easy to guess. But immediately spam emails were sent out to everyone in my address book, and now I'm afraid my email address may have been blacklisted. In fact, I received a notice from one of the servers the spam went to saying I had been blacklisted. What can I do about this?

Public email providers - whitelisted

Submitted by cwd on Wed, 2009-04-01 13:43.

ISP's (Internet Service Providers) have understandings with the major public email providers - ie. Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, etc. that puts them on a special filtered list, so in most cases emails are not blacklisted. Why is this done? Because the public (free) email providers wouldn't get much business if their clients couldn't send any mails out - ie. if they never arrive.

Most likely your emails will still receive their destination. However, this doesn't mean they won't end up in your recipient's junk box. In most cases, emails from free email domains (those listed above) are automatically categorized as junk, because of the high likelihood of spam mail originating from them.