how to fix Blacklist

Koopmann, Jan-Peter jan-peter at koopmann.eu
Wed Apr 9 07:28:03 IST 2008


> If you run a mail server you should be reading your postmaster mail
> everyday. If you do not want to, then you should outsource your email
> to
> someone who will.

Well spoken but far from reality. Most people don't and it really is not
necessary that much. If our system blocks you it will tell you why and
how to contact us via phone, chat, web whatever you like. In the real
world (at least the one I know) managers send mails, these mails bounce
for whatever reason and now one or several of the following happens:

- manager never recognizes the bounce (since it is spam or looks like
it...)
- manager recognizes the bounce as a potential problem (not reading the
MTAs error message telling him exactly what the problem is)
- manager runs off to his/her IT guy telling him that he has "a" problem
(obviously not sending enough information for the admin to find what is
going on)
- admin is either understanding e-mail or calling his/her IT company.
- if admin is understanding e-mail he is trying to read the bounce and
to fix the problem _if_ the problem is on his machine.
- if not, the admin will most likely tell his manager that the problem
is on the other side and he should contact the intended recipient by
phone or else
- assuming he survives this recommendation and that the manager is not
pleased, he/she will then try to contact the other side himself.
- IF the admin is intelligent and optimistic enough (being an admin
himself that most probably does not even know he himself has a
postmaster account let alone where e-mail to this account would end up)
he might try to write to the postmaster at the other side. At this point
his/her manager is already standing right behind him urging him to fix
the problem so the admin will not wait for a potential reply and call
the admin on the other side.


This seems to be about true for all my customers. Maybe you have other
experiences. All this works well even if the mails to postmaster are
blocked as well. :-) 

In the past 10 years I can only remember about 5-10 cases in which my
personal mails to postmaster/abuse whatever actually triggered some sort
of reaction. All of them involved ISPs or alike and none of them
privately held companies. 


So yes in theory you are absolutely correct. In reality having a
postmaster box that is not scanned and really accepts all the junk and
then have a highly paid admin or service going through all the junk is
RFC conform but not happening all that much, is it?


Kind regards,
  JP


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