Goodmail spells doom for mailing lists?
Has anyone talked about the changes planned by AOL, Yahoo! etc. to require "certification" via Goodmail or just be blocked?
http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3581301
http://www.goodmailsystems.com/
What will happen to a mailing list such as this one? Will AOL and Yahoo! users just be out of luck or have to get an e-mail account with another provider in order to receive mailing lists?
Jonathan
On Fri, 17 Feb 2006, Jonathan Dill wrote:
Has anyone talked about the changes planned by AOL, Yahoo! etc. to require "certification" via Goodmail or just be blocked?
It's been beaten to death -- at this point I can't recall if here or on other lists. Essentially it means nothing. AOL backpedaled the next day saying it wasn't a press release, they aren't requiring anything, blah blah blah.
========================================================== Chris Candreva -- chris@westnet.com -- (914) 967-7816 WestNet Internet Services of Westchester http://www.westnet.com/
Has anyone talked about the changes planned by AOL, Yahoo! etc. to require "certification" via Goodmail or just be blocked? ... It's been beaten to death -- at this point I can't recall if here or on other lists. Essentially it means nothing. AOL backpedaled the next day saying it wasn't a press release, they aren't requiring anything, blah blah blah.
Having looked over the earlier articles I could find in the archive, and given how sensitive mailing list operation is to various mail authentication techniques -- e.g., SPF really does break it -- and given that AOL did not quite say that they are not requiring anything, I thought it worth reciting the current policy, as both yahoo and aol are stating quite explicitly:
Their use of Goodmail is for "transaction" messages, like purchase confirmations and is only an adjunct to both service providers' existing mechanisms. For example, AOL with be continuing both of its existing white-list services.
From what I can tell, the Goodmail technology does not work through a mailing list. From what I can tell, limited its application to transaction mail will keep this from being a problem.
--
Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking http://bbiw.net
I'm not quite sure what you've just written here. What is AOL blocking?
Sally Scheer
----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Crocker" dhc2@dcrocker.net Cc: mailman-users@python.org Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 7:56 PM Subject: Re: [Mailman-Users] Goodmail spells doom for mailing lists?
Has anyone talked about the changes planned by AOL, Yahoo! etc. to require "certification" via Goodmail or just be blocked? .... It's been beaten to death -- at this point I can't recall if here or on other lists. Essentially it means nothing. AOL backpedaled the next day saying it wasn't a press release, they aren't requiring anything, blah blah blah.
Having looked over the earlier articles I could find in the archive, and given how sensitive mailing list operation is to various mail authentication techniques -- e.g., SPF really does break it -- and given that AOL did not quite say that they are not requiring anything, I thought it worth reciting the current policy, as both yahoo and aol are stating quite explicitly:
Their use of Goodmail is for "transaction" messages, like purchase confirmations and is only an adjunct to both service providers' existing mechanisms. For example, AOL with be continuing both of its existing white-list services.
From what I can tell, the Goodmail technology does not work through a mailing list. From what I can tell, limited its application to transaction mail will keep this from being a problem.
--
Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking http://bbiw.net
Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/winerat%40villagecorner...
Security Policy: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq01.027.htp
-- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.11/264 - Release Date: 2/17/2006
Sally K Scheer wrote:
I'm not quite sure what you've just written here. What is AOL blocking?
If you only have a few people on your mailing list, probably nothing, but if you cross a certain threshhold--I'm guessing either number of messages sent from you, or number of spam complaints--AOL just starts rejecting your e-mail, and you have to sign up for their "Enhanced Whitelist" service, which is apparently being phased out in favor of Goodmail. Maybe this is not really an issue unless you have a "large" mailing list. My concern was that AOL could start looking at Precedence: list / bulk in the e-mail headers, and then numbers do not matter.
I have a client with an opt-in only newsletter that goes out monthly, you have to go to their website, subscribe to the list, and then confirm your subscription. Or you could fill out a paper form at one of their expos which clearly states that if you want to be on the newsletter mailing list, you should fill in your e-mail address. The list currently has about 45,000 subscribers, about 15,000 of those are from AOL, and as many as 100-200 people may sign up for or leave the list in an average month. Originally, it was more like 55,000, but when I took this on, I tuned the "bounce" settings to be more appropriate for a monthly "announce only" mailing list, peoples' bounce status was just getting reset too quickly.
Sometime last year, AOL just started rejecting our e-mail, and I had to register them for the "Enhanced Whitelist" program so the e-mail would go to AOL subscribers. One thing that did do is that I started receiving e-mail from AOL every time someone reported the mailing as "spam" and then I would unsubscribe them from the list. People sign up for the list, confirm their subscription, and then turn around and complain about getting e-mail from us, and then when I take them off the list, they complain that they should not have been removed, I just don't get it. There is already a clear "Unsubscribe" link in our e-mail messages and we don't make people confirm unsubscription. It would be nice if AOL would give people a "Unsubscribe" button so hopefully people would use that instead of just being lazy and clicking the "Spam" button, the headers by Mailman already include the necessary information to do that. I would like to make it harder for people to subscribe and make people agree to some kind of "Terms of Service" but the client is afraid that will scare off technophobes, and I think there is a point to that.
Since Enhanced Whitelist is supposedly being phased out and we are already on that program, I am wondering if AOL will just start rejecting our e-mail again unless we sign up for Goodmail.
Jonathan
On Feb 24, 2006, at 8:08 AM, Jonathan Dill wrote:
People sign up for the list, confirm their subscription, and then turn around and complain about getting e-mail from us, and then when I take them
off the list, they complain that they should not have been removed, I just
don't get it. There is already a clear "Unsubscribe" link in our e-mail messages and we don't make people confirm unsubscription. It would be nice if AOL would give people a "Unsubscribe" button so hopefully
people would use that instead of just being lazy and clicking the "Spam" button, the headers by Mailman already include the necessary
information to do that.
FWIW, I've been told by AOL subscribers that the discard and spam
buttons are close together and look alike. Every time I've gotten a
spam complaint forwarded from the AOL feedback loop, when asked the
poster has told me that they must have hit the spam button accidentally.
Dan
================================ Dan Phillips Associate Professor of Horn, University of Memphis site administrator: music.memphis.edu
On Fri, 24 Feb 2006, Jonathan Dill wrote:
One thing that did do is that I started receiving e-mail from AOL every time someone reported the mailing as "spam" and then I would unsubscribe them from the list. People sign up for the list, confirm their subscription, and then turn around and complain about getting e-mail from us, and then when I take them off the list, they complain that they should not have been removed, I just don't get it.
Same issues (although smaller volume). My policy is real simple - report the mailing as "spam" and I immediately unsubscribe the perp and ban him from the mail server. The bounce refers to a web page with instructions on how to apply for reinstatement after a year. Until then, they're off. I run the lists as a service to them. I could not care less if they're subscribers or not.
-- Larry Stone lstone19@stonejongleux.com
If you only have a few people on your mailing list, probably nothing, but if you cross a certain threshhold--I'm guessing either number of messages sent from you, or number of spam complaints--AOL just starts rejecting your e-mail, and you have to sign up for their "Enhanced Whitelist" service, which is apparently being phased out in favor of Goodmail.
This is explicitly what they are saying they will NOT be doing.
They will continue their current white list and enhanced white list services.
the EWL is probably what solves your problem.
d/
Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking http://bbiw.net
Thanks, I just found this article, which is interesting reading... If anybody has other relevant links, please let me know, I may put a page on my web page or at least bookmark them in my furl.net bookmarks.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/wpn-60-20060208WhitelistStaysAOLsG...
Dave Crocker wrote:
If you only have a few people on your mailing list, probably nothing, but if you cross a certain threshhold--I'm guessing either number of messages sent from you, or number of spam complaints--AOL just starts rejecting your e-mail, and you have to sign up for their "Enhanced Whitelist" service, which is apparently being phased out in favor of Goodmail.
This is explicitly what they are saying they will NOT be doing.
They will continue their current white list and enhanced white list services.
the EWL is probably what solves your problem.
d/
At 9:08 AM -0500 2006-02-24, Jonathan Dill wrote:
If you only have a few people on your mailing list, probably nothing, but if you cross a certain threshhold--I'm guessing either number of messages sent from you, or number of spam complaints--AOL just starts rejecting your e-mail, and you have to sign up for their "Enhanced Whitelist" service, which is apparently being phased out in favor of Goodmail.
They have since claimed that they won't phase out the existing whitelist mechanism, but I worked at AOL for two years in the Internet Mail Operations group, and I know how their marketing department works. They may dilly-dally for a while, and keep the existing whitelist mechanism in place for a while, but the amount of money that they're going to get paid as their share of what Goodmail sends to their users as paid spam, that's just going to be too big of an attraction for them.
So, bit-by-bit, I am convinced that they will disassemble the whitelist mechanism -- people will get reassigned, budgets will get cut, and it will wind up going the way of the Dodo bird.
Sometime last year, AOL just started rejecting our e-mail, and I had to register them for the "Enhanced Whitelist" program so the e-mail would go to AOL subscribers. One thing that did do is that I started receiving e-mail from AOL every time someone reported the mailing as "spam" and then I would unsubscribe them from the list. People sign up for the list, confirm their subscription, and then turn around and complain about getting e-mail from us, and then when I take them off the list, they complain that they should not have been removed, I just don't get it.
I got first-hand experience as to how stupid most AOL users are during the time I was working there. Believe me, you're interacting with the intelligent ones -- the really dumb ones can't figure out how to send or receive e-mail at all.
Since Enhanced Whitelist is supposedly being phased out and we are already on that program, I am wondering if AOL will just start rejecting our e-mail again unless we sign up for Goodmail.
Maybe not immediately, but in the long-run, if you want to get e-mail to an AOL recipient for any reason, you're going to have to pay them money -- one way or another.
This is a potential cash cow that has been ignored for too long, and once the advertising and marketing vampires get their teeth into this, it's "game over, man".
-- Brad Knowles, brad@stop.mail-abuse.org
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755LOPSA member since December 2005. See http://www.lopsa.org/.
At 4:56 PM -0800 2006-02-23, Dave Crocker wrote:
From what I can tell, the Goodmail technology does not work through a mailing list. From what I can tell, limited its application to transaction mail will keep this from being a problem.
I worked at AOL for over two years, as the first Internet Mail Operations person they ever hired, and left as the Sr. Internet Mail Systems Administrator for AOL. I know how their marketing department works.
On the one hand, you have an old creaky system that only ever kinda-semi-sorta-somewhat works on the best days, and costs a boatload of money, people, and time to maintain. On the other hand, you have a system where they get a share of the paid spam that goes through the system, via Goodmail -- a method that they have said will completely by-pass all anti-spam checks, and guarantees that the paid spammer in question will have unhindered access to your mailbox.
Which one do you honestly think that they are going to choose?-- Brad Knowles, brad@stop.mail-abuse.org
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755LOPSA member since December 2005. See http://www.lopsa.org/.
At 1:10 PM -0500 2006-02-17, Jonathan Dill wrote:
Has anyone talked about the changes planned by AOL, Yahoo! etc. to require "certification" via Goodmail or just be blocked?
We've discussed this subject on this list before. The EFF has published some good stuff, too. But unless you know of something that hasn't already been said before, I'm not sure that I'd continue to whip this decaying equine.
-- Brad Knowles, brad@stop.mail-abuse.org
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755LOPSA member since December 2005. See http://www.lopsa.org/.
participants (7)
-
Brad Knowles -
Christopher X. Candreva -
Dan Phillips -
Dave Crocker -
Jonathan Dill -
Larry Stone -
Sally K Scheer