Last week I talked about the pros and cons of double opt-in. Today I want to
talk about Microsoft's Sender ID system.
Sender ID is the method Microsoft uses to check whether an email is actually
coming from the company that they headers say it is coming from. This is
especially effective against phishing (an email that uses fraudulent sender
information to get personal info from a recipient). Paying attention to sender
IDs is incredibly important for all Microsoft domains (like MSN and Hotmail).
To send to MSN or Hotmail, you must become Sender ID compliant. To do this,
visit http://anti-spamtools.org/ and follow the on-screen wizard. You will have
to give your server's IP address to the list of "Outbound Mail Server
Addresses" for your domain. If you use a service like iContact, they can
help your company become Sender ID compliant.
Next time, I'll talk about how some of the major ISPs manage spam.
