Here's a tale that highlights why it's important never to send a single spam message. Every email message you send should be desired by and explicitly requested by the recipient. If not, you're going to end up doing something that upsets an email administrator, blacklist operator or internet service provider.
Last week, one of my coworkers approached me. She tried to forward a personal message from her work email account over to her university alumni account. That message was bounced back with "Message rejected due to spam policy." She sent it to the deliverability team, and I investigated. Here's what I found:
Thankfully, we picked up on this very quickly. I contacted the university, who kindly worked with me to resolve the issue, and the block was quickly removed. I won't always be that lucky, though. Some administrators are not always so friendly, not always so willing to address an issue and remove a block. If that administrator had been unwilling to help, mail sent by other clients would have been negatively impacted.
As a result, that client found their ability to send email messages suspended, while they work with us to figure out what the heck went wrong, and implement a resolution plan to help ensure they're not mailing any other non opt-in email addresses. (And if the client won't do what we require, they won't find their ability to send re-enabled.)
This is the kind of thing we're trying to prevent with our anti-spam policy and opt-in contract clauses. Simply put, opt-in matters. Wander away from opt-in and stuff like this is going to happen, and you're going to end up blocked, maybe even causing other people to get blocked. This issue shows that there is a direct correlation between opt-in and the ability to deliver mail.
In a perfect world, the university would have notified us before blocking. But, the university administrator (whom I actually know from industry circles) is overworked, just like every other spam fighter. He knows me, but he didn't remember that I worked at ExactTarget. Nor does he have the time to notify every single company who he's blocking for sending spam. If he did, his workload would explode exponentially, and he would be deluged with replies from bad guys wanting to debate him on the merits of their send practices. (Seriously, nobody sending spam ever admits that it is spam. They always lie. Get lied to a couple dozen times a day, every day, by every spammer you talk to, and eventually, you stop listening. This is why ISPs work from complaints and statistics, not your personal assurances.)
Last week, one of my coworkers approached me. She tried to forward a personal message from her work email account over to her university alumni account. That message was bounced back with "Message rejected due to spam policy." She sent it to the deliverability team, and I investigated. Here's what I found:
- Some client of ours sent ONE SINGLE MESSAGE to a bad address at that university.
- The university's email server caught the spam message and routed it to an administrator for review.
- The administrator reviewed the message and saw that there is no way that recipient could have legitimately opted-in. It wasn't a valid address; it didn't belong to a person.
- The administrator then immediately blocked ALL emails from ExactTarget.
Thankfully, we picked up on this very quickly. I contacted the university, who kindly worked with me to resolve the issue, and the block was quickly removed. I won't always be that lucky, though. Some administrators are not always so friendly, not always so willing to address an issue and remove a block. If that administrator had been unwilling to help, mail sent by other clients would have been negatively impacted.
As a result, that client found their ability to send email messages suspended, while they work with us to figure out what the heck went wrong, and implement a resolution plan to help ensure they're not mailing any other non opt-in email addresses. (And if the client won't do what we require, they won't find their ability to send re-enabled.)
This is the kind of thing we're trying to prevent with our anti-spam policy and opt-in contract clauses. Simply put, opt-in matters. Wander away from opt-in and stuff like this is going to happen, and you're going to end up blocked, maybe even causing other people to get blocked. This issue shows that there is a direct correlation between opt-in and the ability to deliver mail.
In a perfect world, the university would have notified us before blocking. But, the university administrator (whom I actually know from industry circles) is overworked, just like every other spam fighter. He knows me, but he didn't remember that I worked at ExactTarget. Nor does he have the time to notify every single company who he's blocking for sending spam. If he did, his workload would explode exponentially, and he would be deluged with replies from bad guys wanting to debate him on the merits of their send practices. (Seriously, nobody sending spam ever admits that it is spam. They always lie. Get lied to a couple dozen times a day, every day, by every spammer you talk to, and eventually, you stop listening. This is why ISPs work from complaints and statistics, not your personal assurances.)
ExactTarget Feed
Powered by Compendium Blogware
Comments for A Single Spam Message Can Sink the Ship