I realize it's natural and predictable, when spam is mentioned, to repeat the folklore...then the robots came and we were all driven underground to survive... However my point was something more in the realm of standards and operations and what we can do rather than going back over what we can't seem to do. For example, and it's only an example don't quibble the example, defining a list of return SMTP codes which are actually specific and meaningful like (let's assume they should be 5xx, maybe 7xx would be a better start? Policy failure codes) 540 Sending site in internal blacklist contact: URL or MAILBOX 541 Sending site is in external blacklist: URL 542 FROM address blocked: MAILBOX 543 RCPT address blocked: MAILBOX 544 BODY contained blacklisted URL or MAILBOX: URL or MAILBOX 545 BODY contained blacklisted string not a URL or MAILBOX 546 SUBJECT contained blacklisted URL or MAILBOX: URL or MAILBOX 547 SUBJECT contained blacklisted string not a URL or MAILBOX 548 SPF Failure (note: could be subsetted further or detail code added) 549 DKIM Failure (note: could be subsetted further or detail code added) and so on, a taxonomy which could then at least be dealt with intelligently by sending MTAs and supporting software rather than each side cooking up their own stuff. That's the first problem with this yahoo flap, right? You have to go to the backed up mail queues and stare at them and try to pattern match that a lot of these are from yahoo, and oh look they're deferred?, wait, inside the queue files you can find this "421 Deferred due to user complaints see URL" which then leads you to a form to fill out and you're still not sure what exactly you're pursuing other than hoping you can make it go away either by your action or theirs. Gak, there isn't even a standard code which means MAILBOX FULL or ACCOUNT NOT RECEIVING MAIL other than MAILBOX FULL, maybe by choice, maybe non-payment, as specific as a site is comfortable with. That's what I mean by standards and at least trying to focus on what can be done rather than the endless retelling of what can't be done. More specific and standardized SMTP failure codes are just one example but I think they illustrate the point I'm trying to make. Oh yeah here's another (ok maybe somewhere this is written down), how about agreeing on contact mailboxes like we did with postmaster@domain? Is it abuse@domain or spam@domain or support@domain or postmaster@domain (very commonly used) or ???@domain. Who cares? But let's pick ONE, stuff it in an RFC or BCP and try to get each other to conform to it. -- -Barry Shein The World | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD | Login: Nationwide Software Tool & Die | Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*