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Date:      Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:40:10 +0100
From:      Robin Becker <robin@reportlab.com>
To:        Jeffrey Goldberg <jeffrey@goldmark.org>,  FreeBSD_Questions FreeBSD_Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: genuine bulk email
Message-ID:  <470F874A.4080305@chamonix.reportlab.co.uk>
In-Reply-To: <64D5573F-7C7F-404D-8928-E015D595A54C@goldmark.org>
References:  <470F62F3.9040309@chamonix.reportlab.co.uk> <64D5573F-7C7F-404D-8928-E015D595A54C@goldmark.org>

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Jeffrey Goldberg wrote:
> On Oct 12, 2007, at 7:05 AM, Robin Becker wrote:
> 
>> At present I have reduced the email to a textual format with an 
>> embedded textual link. So the email looks like
>>
>..........
> When you personalize that give the date and IP address of the request. 
> Something like
> 
>   ... the brochures you requested at TIME from IP.

this sounds reasonable

> 
>> but is there anything at a system level that can be done to make 
>> emails less likely to be classified as spam?
> 
> The most crucial thing is the status of IP of the host sending the mail
> 
>   o Does it have a proper DNS PTR (reverse DNS) record?
>   o Are you using SPF or DomainKeys to show that that IP address
>     is authorized to send mail in the sending domain's name?
>   o Do you have working postmaster and abuse addresses for the domain you
>     are sending from?
>   o Do you have a static IP address?
>   o Are you clear of any major blacklists?
>   o Can you demonstrate that every recipient really did request the mail?
> 

these all sound very reasonable. However, we use the same IP for several virtual 
hosts ie we have more than one domain name so the reverse DNS is not clear to 
me. Is the from address inspected for comparison with the RDNS ie if I claim to 
be sending from xxx.com should my RDNS point back to xxx.com? Presumably I can 
have only one IP-->domain ptr. I suspect it will be easier to set up the front 
end machine as that is supposed to be for the same client.

> Each of those are far more important than whether you attach a PDF.  (By 
> the way, say it's PDF or even Adobe's PDF, but not "Adobe Acrobat format".)
> 

OK that's good.

>> I assume that spammers try very hard and fail, so is this kind of 
>> email application effectively dead in the water before it starts?
> 
> Automatic mailing is fine.  What is important is how the email addresses 
> were acquired.
......

this isn't automatic, the sales people manually enter all the details. The 
attached document is what the application generates and then the combined email.
-- 
Robin Becker



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