Microsoft confirms working email addresses to spammers
Posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 11:47pm. #
And now, a public service announcement.
If you send an email to someone on Hotmail (or live.com or any other Microsoft webmail property), you might get a bounce message back again, saying something like:
<someonesomewhere12345@hotmail.co.uk>: host mx2.hotmail.com[65.54.244.168] said: 550
Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable (in reply to RCPT TO
command)
This is a cryptic error message. I was getting a few of these, so I Googled it and couldn’t find out what it meant. The only thing I could tell, with some certainty, is that this was a Microsoft-specific error message.
Reputable emailers can join Microsoft’s anti-spam programme. Unlike AOL’s similar programme, this process involves a lengthy questionnaire, then a requirement to get your ISP to send an email to Microsoft, and then to sign a document electronically that - hey - you can only do with Internet Explorer. But I did that, and now I know whenever anyone reports me as spam (so I can clean them off my system).
Curious, then, that every spam report is also accompanied by… you guessed it… a ‘550 mailbox unavailable’ error.
So, now you know two things.
First, if you’re a mailing list owner, a ‘550 mailbox unavailable’ error actually means ‘this user has reported you for sending spam’. Don’t hound them for mistaking your double opt-in list for spam; but remove them since that’s what they clearly want.
Second, if you’re a Hotmail user, every time you hit that button in Hotmail to report spam, you’re reporting directly back to the spammer that you’ve got a valid email address and that you’re actively using it.
Well done, Microsoft, anther triumph.
(This is another great reason to support the RFCs and add an unsubscribe button to email clients. Please read that, too, if you think I’m sending spam - I’m not.)
Photo: Tama Leaver. Used under licence.
