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[kitz]

Notification to members that emails to any of the following domains are being bounced -  Yet again!

@live.com
@outlook.com
@hotmail.com

This is affecting the registration confirmation for new forum members and notifications for subscribed topics & personal messages.
Yet again we appear to be an innocent victim of Microsoft's 'Smart Filter' despite following all their rules.
The domain is clean and definitely not on any blacklists - See MX Toolbox Blacklist check.

------------

This is the third time this has happened.  Both times in the past Microsoft admitted it was an error on their part and we should not have been blacklisted and agreed to mitigate the domain.   
We are not the only reputable site this is happening to and its becoming an irksome routine for many other websites too.

See here and here

TBF I do not have time today to spend the hours that it takes chasing MS and am so fed up of their ridiculously broken system that I am considering blacklisting all their email addresses if I can find a way which doesn't affect existing members accounts.

[Chrysalis]

yeah just ban freemail addresses, Microsoft emails system also has been broken for years on their algorithms, same with outlook in office as well but at least on that the filters can be disabled

[d2d4j]

Hi kitz

Ohh dear

My best advice to you would be not to block Microsoft. It is very well used by many and blocking Microsoft would only hurt kitz, not Microsoft

As this is the third time, I would simply reply back to the very last email received confirming you should have been whitelisted, and explain that it has happened again, and ask politely to have it corrected ASAP please. Also quote your original 2 ticket numbers.

This should save a lot of time of going through the same hoops to be whitelisted as they will be able to read the previous tickets.

I would consider it may have happened due to Microsoft changes for GDPR perhaps

I am sorry if I wrong but good luck, and my offer still stands if you ever need the use of it.

Many thanks

John

[kitz]

Confirmation that the block has been removed this morning.

Conditionally mitigated

Our investigation has determined that the above IP(s) qualify for conditional mitigation.

Mitigation may take 24 - 48 hours to replicate completely throughout our system.

Like I say, fed up that I have to jump through hoops every few months.    I can block people from these domains from signing up for new accounts, but that would also impact on existing members.   If I can find a way of doing so then I damn well will.

My webhosts also had this to say

Lately they have been denying messages from legitimate servers and they provide no information as to why this occurs.
Microsoft have no automatic way of providing details for these cases.

What a stupid system whereby each time I have to start from scratch again and prove that:  I am not on any RBL blacklists, that I don't have a bad mail reputation and get my hosts to confirm there is no suspicious  behaviour or spam messages sent from my server 

[burakkucat]

<Sigh!> 

[Weaver]

Regarding emails sent out, it is good that there an SPF record (for example) set up on the kitz.co.uk domain - I assume that is the email From: domain?

Is there anything we could suggest to help boost Kitz' mail sender reputation further ?

I am also wondering if anyone is impersonating you by sending fake emails to MS (for example) with spoofed From: addresses that match your domains.

[kitz]

Regarding emails sent out, it is good that there an SPF record (for example) set up on the kitz.co.uk domain - I assume that is the email From: domain?

Yes - I've done absolutely everything by the book.   There is no reason at all way they should do this.
btw they say they're not blocking on the domain, but on the server IP so that makes it even weirder

It concerns me that this time they have responded with "conditionally mitigated" whereas in the past they just said "mitigated".   Mind you fat lot of good that was when I still get blocked every few months. 

Is there anything we could suggest to help boost Kitz' mail sender reputation further ?

Those members who have MS mail services not just straight sending PM notifications to the recycle bin and marking them as good is about all I can think.

The other alternative reading between the lines of the full email from them is that someone marked mail from this IP as spam.  I have no idea why a forum member would deliberately mark notifications as junk mail..  but thats getting into the realms of paranoia so I'm not going there.. and going to assume (hope) that was standard script.

Bear in mind I am not alone in this problem, since it began I have had several emails from people who I've never heard of before asking my advice how I managed MS to mitigate my server because they are having the same problems and finding it extremely difficult to get their own server unblocked.
MS even blacklisted TalkTalk mail and a couple of other prominent UK websites a few months ago so it shows you how pathetic their system is. 

I am also wondering if anyone is impersonating you by sending fake emails to MS (for example) with spoofed From: addresses that match your domains.

I think over about the past six months I've seen bounce messages for just 2 or 3 spoofed from the domain name..  certainly no more than half a dozen.   Because I have set up SPF & DKIM.... and the fact they blacklist the IP (not the domain) would suggest this is not the reason.
As discussed in one of the threads on one of the previous occasions, they base it on behaviour of recipients of mail from me.    So someone getting lots of PM and thread notifications who send them straight to recycle bin negatively impacts me.

Thus I feel I have a valid reason to refuse any forum signups from MS mail.   My personal mail (but on a different account & domain name) is also sent from the same server, so it means that I also can't mail any of my personal contacts with MS mail either because the block is IP based.

atm I could block signups from MS mail..  but the side effect is that it would ban members already registered with MS mail accounts. 

[Chrysalis]

Weaver I have seen it myself on servers, valid DKIM, SPF, RDNS, Helo, headers etc.  Clean IP,domain on blacklists but blocked by hotmail.  Its Microsoft's systems been unreliable.

In regards to blocking freemail, I am registered on a lot of forums and other free sites, I would say roughly 1/2 block freemail, and some of these are quite large communities.

If you considering blocking MS kitz, then perhaps give a month notice for people to update their contact email address.

[Weaver]

Hotmail admins are just hurting themselves as well as their customers by this lack of clue.

[j0hn]

I don't think anyone mentioned blocking freemail... that would kill the forum in a heartbeat.
Gmail is freemail.

I don't think I've ever attempted to register for a site that has blanket banned all free mail providers.

Actually I've only ever seen MS provided email addresses being blocked from signups, with the main reason given that the verification email goes straight to spam.

I haven't paid for email since I signed up for gmail beta many years ago.
My Demon email subscription was allowed to expire shortly after.

[kitz]

I don't think anyone mentioned blocking freemail.

No just MS from registrations.   I think a lot of other forums do this now because of how they seem over zealous with marking mail as spam when its not.
I do have a block on a couple of others such as mail.ru which are frequently used by spambots.   

Problem is currently if I block, then it will impact live users such as skyeci and michty.   There is an SMF mod which will block just new registrants, but unfortunately its not currently supported for the version of SMF that I use and fails on install.

I don't have any problems with gmail.

[Ronski]

Is there many users with MS email addresses ?

If there isn't many it may be worth PM/Emailing to see if they could change them.

[michty_me]

Just a heads up, I received a flurry of email notifications today to my hotmail account after not receiving any for some time.

[j0hn]

Just a heads up, I received a flurry of email notifications today to my hotmail account after not receiving any for some time.

You didn't automatically delete them without reading them did you?
The suspicion is that's what's flagging the site email as spam.

MS only unblocked kitz today that's why you haven't been receiving any emails.

[Chrysalis]

I don't think anyone mentioned blocking freemail... that would kill the forum in a heartbeat.
Gmail is freemail.

I don't think I've ever attempted to register for a site that has blanket banned all free mail providers.

Actually I've only ever seen MS provided email addresses being blocked from signups, with the main reason given that the verification email goes straight to spam.

I haven't paid for email since I signed up for gmail beta many years ago.
My Demon email subscription was allowed to expire shortly after.

no kitz is only going to block hotmail I think, however there is definitely sites that block gmail and yahoo also and they not dead.

But in this case I think just blocking hotmail is adequate.