What Do Others Say About Spamhaus?

One of the most dreaded blacklists customers face is Spamhaus. Even the most sophisticated, smart senders can find themselves on Spamhaus’ blacklist. To avoid this in your email program, it is important to understand what action to take when you come across Spamhaus and how to prevent a listing in the future.

Spamhaus is an international blacklist organization founded in Europe in 1998. Currently, they employ 38 employees across 10 countries. The primary focus of Spamhaus is to track spammers and spam-like activity. Spamhaus is made up of several blacklists that mailbox providers utilize to protect themselves against spam-like activity. Spamhaus presently protects over 1.9 billion email users’ mailboxes. Spamhaus distributes six DNS-based (DNSBL’s) blacklists and one domain-based blacklist. The key blacklists Spamhaus manages include ZEN, BCL, XBL, SBL, PBL, and DBL.

What Does Wiki Say About Spamhaus?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spamhaus_Project

What Does Yours Truly Say About Spamhaus?

Many Internet Service Providers (such as Comcast, GMX, Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, and perhaps Yandex) have - unfortunately - tied themselves into the questionable anti-"spam" control of Spamhaus, and it is almost certain that Christian religious content of bulk-sent e-mails sent out from me using GMX and Yahoo and perhaps Yandex is a factor in them and Spamhaus blocking my outgoing e-mails.

It is imperative that all entities who have private servers avoid partnering with Spamhaus to prevent Christian-content e-mail messages from being mis-labeled "spam" by Spamhaus and their ISP conspirators.

What Does Spamhaus Say About Themselves?

https://www.spamhaus.org/organization

https://www.spamhaus.org/organization/statement/013/popular-spammer-myths-about-spamhaus

https://www.spamhaus.org/faq/section/Legal%20Questions

The ZEN Blacklist

Probably the most common Spamhaus listing is the ZEN blacklist. The ZEN blacklist is a combination of IP-based DNS blacklists (DNSBLs), which includes SBL, SBLCCS, XBL, and PBL. It is also a public-based blacklist and will have a high impact on deliverability if listed. ZEN will identify and reject roughly 85% of a typical mail relay’s incoming mail traffic.

Court cases against Spamhaus:

https://www.spamhaus.org/organization/statement/014/case-dismissed-ames-mcgee-v-the-spamhaus-project

https://www.spamhaus.org/organization/statement/003/case-answer-e360insight-vs.-the-spamhaus-project

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110903/00560215803/e360s-11-million-win-against-spamhaus-now-reduced-to-just-3-not-3-million-just-3.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061008/163213.shtml

https://www.emailanswers.com/2015/09/understanding-email-blacklists-deal-listed-delisted

To Discover Whether Your E-Mail Address is Listed by Spamhaus

Simply check https://www.spamhaus.org/lookup/ to see if you are listed on any of the blacklists Spamhaus manages. You will need to either enter your IP address or domain name for the two checks Spamhaus offers.

If Your E-mail Address Is Listed On Spamhaus, What Can You Do?

1. Take immediate action. If you are blacklisted on Spamhaus, you are probably in total freak out mode. Spamhaus will mis-affect your deliverability.

First, stop sending mail to Spamhaus-affiliated users the second you know you are listed on Spamhaus. You can check this using the Spamhaus link: https://www.spamhaus.org/lookup/ to see what IP addresses and domains are affected.

2. Communicate. It is important all parties involved in your email program are aware of Spamhaus and their ISP conspirators censoring and blocking your outgoing e-mail transmissions.

3. Delete those e-mail addressess associated with those who have partnered with Spamhaus. Make sure complainers identified on the feedback loop are promptly removed.

4. It is advisable to not send e-mail to those who you suspect will be offended by it and thus complain to and partner with Spamhaus to blacklist your e-mail address. Make sure you are sending mail mainlyu to those who have opted-in to receive it, and consider implementing a confirmed opt-out means. However, it behooves recipients of non-solicited mail who do not like the content of the e-mail received nor want to receive more of it or like it to themselves courageously and bravely e-mail back a specific-enough request to not have any more e-mail from the e-mail address they object to e-mailed to them.

5. Remove inactive subscribers. It is advisable to not continually send mail to those who do not interact with it. You might also want to try a re-engagement campaign and try to win back unengaged subscribers. If they do not engage after you deploy a re-engagement campaign/s, delete them permanently from your sending list.

Q: Spamhaus says that it is Comcast that has blocked me. Comcast says they haven't blocked me but Spamhaus has no real person to talk to and their directions are wrong so I don't know what to do now. I guess I can't sue. But they sure have cut me off totally. Anyone have any suggestions?

A: Simply delete the person or group who objected to your e-mailed content by complaining to your Internet Service Provider by clicking on the "Spam" option which complaint was sent to Spamhaus who then put your e-mail address on a black list.

IMPORTANT: To all owners, operators, and maintainers of private servers:

Do NOT partner with Spamhaus nor their ISP affiliate conspirators unless you want to be in continual jeopardy of even useful information of and on and from outgoing and incoming e-mails being blocked and censored by Spamhaus and their ISP partners!

Spamhaus's ONLY e-mail address = admin-sec-ch@spamhaus.org