On Thu, Jun 02, 2005 at 06:57:06AM -0700, Bill Taroli wrote: > I learned recently that my employer's IT organization has decided it > best for the MX to process all mail as if it were successful even when > it's final disposition isn't. It neither returns 5xx (such as on bad > address) nor do the subsequent MTA's and MDA's generate DSN's. Is this > acceptable, or even suggested, practice? It's apparently generated a few > angry customers -- who think their emails are being ignored due to lack > of response -- but it also just seems wrong. I haven't reviewed the > RFCs, but I wonder if it might also be considered non-compliant.
Yes, RFC 2821 says: If an SMTP server has accepted the task of relaying the mail and later finds that the destination is incorrect or that the mail cannot be delivered for some other reason, then it MUST construct an "undeliverable mail" notification message and send it to the originator of the undeliverable mail (as indicated by the reverse- path). Formats specified for non-delivery reports by other standards (see, for example, [24, 25]) SHOULD be used if possible. In addition, in some legislations like Germany, this action may be considered criminal (suppression of a message by a carrier, in essence). Jost -- | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please help stamp out spam! | | Postmaster, JAPH, resident answer machine at RUB Comp. Center | | Sincere words are not sweet, sweet words are not sincere. | | Lao Tse, Tao Te King 81 |
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