On Fri, 21 Jun 2002, Danita Zanre wrote:

> SPAM: Content analysis details:   (5.7 hits, 5 required)
> SPAM: X_SMTPEXP_VERSION  (3.2 points)  Found a X-SMTPExp-Version header
> SPAM: X_EM2.31PRESENT   (1.3 points)  Found a X-EM-Version header
> SPAM: X_EM_REGISTRATION  (1.2 points)  Found a X-EM-Registration header

Hmm, I was pretty sure we'd discussed the X-Em rules before 2.30 came out.

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=1640093

Did the decision to remove those rules get changed, or just never carried
through?

> Can you help me understand why these values would be "SPAM" triggers?

The problem is that spammers buy some of the same ecommerce software that
legitimate businesses do, and then abuse it.  Or legitimate but very naive
marketers send unsolicted mail, and then the earmarks on those messages
are taken to be signs that all similar messages are also spam.

SA is actually better about this than most filtering systems because it
has rules for "this doesn't look like spam" that can offset the rules for
"this does look like spam."  It just sometimes takes a couple of releases
to tune things when new rules are added (those above are new since 2.20).

Here's an article that explains about "appending," a technique that seems
appealing to the naive marketer but often ends up turning them into an
"unintentional" spammer:

        http://www.clickz.com/em_mkt/opt/article.php/1367711

(Too many lists that are for sale for "appending" are compiled by keeping
any address that doesn't respond negatively, rather than by keeping only
those that respond positively.  Unfortunately the naive marketer doesn't
understand the distinction.)

> My biggest concern is that these are probably going to be present in
> mailings I send to customers (for example, notifying them when we have
> new products, or when current products are updated) if I use the mailing
> list generator from the shopping cart.  We only send email to people who
> have specifically requested that we have them on our mailing list/have
> requested product updates, so it's important that our messages not be
> classified as Spam by SpamAssassin or any other Spam killer products.

Here's an article about that (not specifically about SA):

        http://www.clickz.com/em_mkt/infra/article.php/1368321

The upshot is that it's *impossible* to avoid being classified as spam at
least *some* of the time.  No matter how careful you are, eventually you
*will* be reported to SpamCop, added to someone's local blacklist, or have
messages rejected because of an SMTP server's content filters.

A problem that the article above doesn't even mention is that frequently
once you've been filtered, the person who set up the filter won't even
listen to protestations that it was an honest mistake and will continue to
filter you forever.  Spammers give everyone a bad name.



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