Spam Blacklist Removal

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Getting Off a Spammer Blacklist

"I think we may have been incorrectly classified as being a spammer. Do you know how we go about getting ourselves off a blacklist of spammers?" -- Martin

Repeated senders of spam or Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) are often reported to spammer blacklists. These lists of accused spammers are then used by some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block blacklisted domain e-mails from going to any subscribers to their service.

However, the blacklisting approach to stop spam has its downside:

1. Some publishers reported as spammers are legitimate publishers or businesses that never spam. Perhaps the recipient forgot he had signed up for a newsletter or perhaps a friend subscribed him thinking he would like it. But it might be reported as spam whether it really is or not.
2. Listservers that handle many opt-in lists from the same domain or bank of IP addresses are sometimes banned when one of their clients spams -- and all the listservers' clients are punished.
3. It can sometimes be difficult to be removed from spammer blacklists, since they may be staffed only by volunteers or may have an unrealistic definition of spam.

Some of the more important blacklists are given below. Most have a lookup feature where you can check your IP address or your listserver's IP address. Some have a clearly-outlined process to be removed from the blacklist. To be removed, follow the process given or write to the listowner stating the reasons why you should be removed from the blacklist. In the past, YesMail and other legitimate e-mail services have resorted to lawsuits to force removal from blacklists, but these days (hopefully) blacklist administrators are more open to reason.

• Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS, www.mail-abuse.org) maintains the Realtime Blackhole List, the most important blacklist, and had many ISPs as subscribers.
• Network Abuse Clearinghouse (www.abuse.net)
• NJABL.ORG (Not Just Another Blacklist, www.njabl.org)
• SPAM Blocking Blackhole List (http://blackholes.bruli.net)

Other anti-spam organizations are listed in Yahoo! Directory under "Email > Spam"