On 10/25/07, Weier, Paul <paul@ibsys.com> wrote:

Any Hotmail/MSN/Live postmasters around?

My company sends subscription-based news emails -- which go to thousands of users within Hotmail/MSN/Live. I appear to be getting blocked recently after years of success.

Hotmail mail administrators are unlikely to be lurking on NANOG. But, there are standardized processes one uses to reach out to them regarding delivery issues. I would recommend you start here: http://tinyurl.com/2byyts Reach out via that form, explain the situation, and ask for guidance. Indicate to them that you are indeed using Sender ID. They'll likely respond with info regarding JMRP, Hotmail's version of a feedback loop, and SNDS, data Hotmail provides regarding how your mailings are perceived by their systems. Both are valuable and highly recommended. Issues like this are usually indicators of reputation problems; generating too many spam complaints, hitting too many spamtraps, and generating too many bounces. Not sure what your specific situation would be, but proper handling of bounces and proper signup practices are a must. MAAWG, The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group, publishes a sending best practices document. It might be a good place for you to start. It can be found here: http://www.maawg.org/about/MAAWG_Sender_BCP/ If you're not able to get somewhere based on all of this, it might be wise to seek some specific consulting on this front, or partner with an email service provider, most of whom would manage these types of issues for you, or in coordination with you. Best regards, Al Iverson -- Al Iverson on Spam and Deliverability, see http://www.spamresource.com News, stats, info, and commentary on blacklists: http://www.dnsbl.com My personal website: http://www.aliverson.com -- Chicago, IL, USA Remove "lists" from my email address to reach me faster and directly.

I have read the postmaster doco at MSN. I have put SPFs for SenderID into many of my news station domains but it doesn't seem to be affecting my success at delivery over other domains which do not yet have any such configs. What am I missing to get un"blacklisted"? I can't seem to find any human contact info on there.

What I did in the past in a similar situation was sign up for an MSN account, complain that my office couldn't email me, and keep escalating until I reached somebody who understood the problem. Of course the circumstances were somewhat different, and a spammer in a nearby netblock had ignored them and they ended up blacklisting the whole /24 instead of just the spammer's /27-- but it's still probably worth a try. -- Dave Pooser, ACSA Manager of Information Services Alford Media http://www.alfordmedia.com