The FCC recently published a notice of proposed rulemaking that will have an impact on how we fight abuse on the internet. M3AAWG has submitted a comment on the proposal (pdf link). All submissions can be found on the FCC website.
I have an email address that’s old enough to drink. It came to me today when I was discussing data hygiene. I mean, I have an email address that is old enough to drink! And it wasn’t even my first email address, it’s just the one I still have access to.
This realization led me down a path of what things have changed since I got that address.
I remember …
… when things posted on the Internet weren’t around forever.
… when Google bought DejaNews and made USENET archives more available.
Update: As of mid-morning pacific time on 10/7 yahoo.com has been removed from the FCC list.
As part of CAN SPAM the FCC maintains a list of wireless domains that require proof of permission to send mail to. Recently, various email folks noticed that yahoo.com was added to this list.
According to the law, senders have 30 days to meet the permission standards for any recipients at domains on the FCC list. In practical terms what this means is that the FCC and Yahoo have 30 days to fix this error and get yahoo.com off the list. Based on conversations with people who’ve talked to Yahoo and the FCC this is in the process of happening.
This isn’t the first time a non-wireless domain has been added to the FCC list.
As a sender what should you do with your yahoo.com subscribers?
Right now, nothing. There is a 30 day grace period between when a domain goes on the FCC list and when senders need to comply. I have every expectation that this will be removed in less than 30 days.
But what if it’s not?
In that case you will need to segregate out yahoo.com subscribers in 30 days and not mail them until the domain is removed from the FCC list. While I can’t actively suggest ignoring the law, it’s unlikely that the FCC is going to start coming after senders for mailing yahoo.com addresses once the 30 days are up.
More information: Al Iverson’s Spam Resource.
Happy April! I’m just back from the EEC conference in New Orleans, which was terrific. I wrote a quick post about a great session on content marketing, and I’ll have more to add about the rest of the conference over the next week or so. Stay tuned!
Here’s a look at what caught our attention in March:
On the DMARC front, we noted that both Yahoo and mail.ru are moving forward with p=reject, and Steve offered some advice for ESPs and software developers on methods for handling this gracefully. I also answered an Ask Laura question about making the decision to publish DMARC. Look for more on that in this month’s Ask Laura questions…
Our other Ask Laura question this month was about changing ESPs, which senders do for many reasons. It’s useful to know that there will generally be some shifts in deliverability with any move. Different ESPs measure engagement in different ways, and other issues may arise in the transition, so it’s good to be aware of these if you’re contemplating a change.
In industry news, I wrote a sort of meta-post about how the Internet is hard (related: where do you stand on the great Internet vs. internet debate? Comment below!) and we saw several examples of that this month, including a privacy debacle at Florida State University. Marketing is hard, too. I revisited an old post about a fraud case where a woman sued Toyota over an email marketing “prank”. As always, my best practices recommendation for these sorts of things (and everything else!) really boils down to one thing: send wanted email.
Steve wrote extensively about SPF this month in two must-read posts, where he explained the SPF rule of ten and how to optimize your SPF records. He also wrote about Mutt, the much-loved command line email client, and marked the passing of industry pioneer Ray Tomlinson, who, in addition to his many accomplishments, was by all accounts a very thoughtful and generous man.
Finally, I occasionally like to take a moment and follow the twisty paths that lead to my spam folder. Here’s a look at how Ugg spams my email doppelganger, MRS LAURA CORBISHLEY. In other spam news, there’s a lot of very interesting data in the recent 10 Worst list from Spamhaus. Take a look if you haven’t seen it yet.