[Brandr]

One of my domains had been blacklisted as a spammer. I have never been involved in spamming in my entire Internet experience. The only explanation I can come up with, is that the site was somehow misidentified due to a mass emailing I sent out to members informing them the site was back online after a few weeks absence.
Or - that a disgruntled member had reported my site for spamming activity.

Anyone have anything like this happen to them?


B.

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by Brandr

Anyone have anything like this happen to them?

Yes, as a matter of fact...this happened just recently to AF.

Contact the ISP who blacklisted you and request to get removed...You'll probably have to fill out some stuff and prove that you did not send out spam.

[bcmtouring]

Brandr have you added SPF record for your domain?

Ryan I have just checked and I see that Adminfusion doesn't have a SPF record either. In the absence of an SPF record it is hard for an ISP to determine whether an email has been sent by your server or if its a work of a spammer who is masking his spam to look like its coming from your domain.

For more details check out SPF: Project Overview

[BamaStangGuy]

I need to do this for the sites in my sig. Not sure how to do it though. I have the following setup:

Webserver - 208.78.43.217
Mail Server - 208.78.43.215

So the web server connects to the mail server to send the mail.

[bcmtouring]

I think this should do, but I am not 100% sure about it so you might want to get it checked by a network admin.

"v=spf1 ip4:208.78.43.215 a mx ptr ~all"

The SPF Setup Wizard

[calum]

I have never had any problems with this yet.

I just make sure that at the very bottom of the email it says something like:

This email complies 100% with spam laws. If you no longer want to receive CompuTalk newsletters then please untick the box "Receive Emails from Administrators" in your User CP.

[Flashgear]

There is spam laws? And how can you check if your domain is blacklisted? and what does it mean?

[Caddyman]

this is such a confusing topic, we need a expert...lol

[Flashgear]

Originally Posted by Caddyman

this is such a confusing topic, we need a expert...lol

Anytakers?

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by Flashgear

There is spam laws?

Most definitely...lots of them, the most common being CAN-SPAM...Read about it more at good ole Wikipedia...but basically, if you are sending unsolicited emails (meaning that the receiver never agreed to the email) or are sending mass emails without the option to unsubscribe, you could be in violation of spam laws...The important thing to do is first make sure that the user has agreed to receive emails - Either a checkbox that says "yes, I agree to receive emails" or an opt-in type box where they can enter their email address to sign up for your newsletter...

Even then, you can only send people emails that they have agreed to. If somebody signs up for a vBulletin email list and you send them ads about Viagra, you're in trouble...And...when you send out emails (even to your subscribed users), you need to give users the option to unsubscribe from your mailing list. If you don't tell them how to unsubscribe, you could get in trouble.

You also, as far as I know, are not allowed to sell or distribute email lists unless the owners of those email addresses are aware of it.

Those are just a few of the things to look out for, but there are more ways to go wrong.

Originally Posted by Flashgear

And how can you check if your domain is blacklisted? and what does it mean?

Again, you can get blacklisted for all sorts of things...but, there are spiders out there that crawl through emails, and if they suspect that you are spamming people, you could get blacklisted. If you are blacklisted, that means that whoever blacklisted you (typically an ISP) will refuse any emails that are sent from your server. So, for example, if Bellsouth receives a bunch of emails from your server and they think they're spam, they can blacklist you...That means that anybody who uses @bellsouth.net email addresses will no longer be able to receive any emails from your server.

Honestly, I don't know how to check if you're blacklisted...our host is the one who informed us