Cousin domains

When I checked in on Facebook this morning there was a discussion from a couple people frustrated by cousin domains. I share their frustration.

Kitten running through field with text “every time a marketing department registers a cousin domain, god kills a kitten”

Cousin domains are a major problem for ISPs trying to protect their users from phishing and other fraud. Because so many companies use cousin domains in their legitimate mail, ISPs can not be strict with them. Instead, they have to expend time and energy to determine if this particular cousin domain is legitimate or not.

It’s time, energy and other resources that could be used better.


Related Posts

Brand indicators in email

A number of companies in the email industry have been working on a way to better identify authenticated emails to users. One proposal is Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI). A couple weeks ago, Agari announced a pilot program with some brands and a number of major consumer mail providers. These logos should be available in the Yahoo interface now and will be rolling out at other providers.

Read More

Fun with spam filters

I recently had a challenging travel experience in the Netherlands, trying to get from Schipol airport to a conference I was speaking at. As part of my attempt to get out of the airport, I installed UBER on my phone. There were some challenges with getting UBER to authorise my phone number, so I tried linking it to my Gmail account.

Read More

Schroedinger’s email

The riskiest email to send is that very first email. It’s a blank slate. Even if you’re sending confirmation messages, you don’t really know anything about how this email is going to affect your reputation.

Read More