Full Disclosure: Convio is a competitor of ours in some spaces. That said, Convio (and eroi) is looking out for your best interest. There are two primary email authentication mechanisms. The first, Sender Policy Framework (SPF), has been around for a while and is used broadly - especially by Email Service Providers (ESPs). It is very easy to set up on the sender's side where you add a DNS record that states which email servers are authorized to send email on behalf of your domain. Most MTAs now have the ability to do a quick DNS check when an email is received to verify that the sending MTA is authorized. Because everything is DNS based, SPF does not require any changes to the sending MTA. Summary - everyone should be using SPF now.
DomainKeys (from Yahoo) or the standards version DKIM have been around for a few years too, but are not as widely used. However, that is expected to change this year as Ebay and PayPal have adopted the technology and many financial institutions are expected to follow suit before year's end. There are a couple of challenges. First, while DKIM is the version adopted as the standard, Yahoo still only uses DomainKeys. Normally I'd say go with the standard and forget the legacy. However, Yahoo is the bane of existence for every ESP on the planet - including Convio and including eRoi. Therefore, for the time being if Convio is having challenges delivering your email to Yahoo, it would be a good idea to adopt DomainKeys... if it weren't for one little problem. As of the last time I checked, about a year ago, Exchange didn't support DomainKeys (or DKIM for that matter) and there weren't any plans to add support. The problem is that if your ESP is sending email with a From: address domain that matches your regular email (which it probably does) then Convio will be able to sign your email with your DomainKey, but you won't unless you have a non-Microsoft server as your internet facing MTA. If delivery of your newsletters, etc. is important then my recommendation is to ignore DomainKeys for now and get a dedicated IP address from your ESP. This will keep the ESP's other clients from having a negative impact on your deliverability and if you send email that people want - meaning they don't hit the "spam button," then you won't have any problems with any of the ISPs. For a more detailed look at SPF and DKIM check out the whitepaper recently released by MAAWG: http://www.maawg.org/about/publishedDocuments/MAAWG_Email_Authentication _Paper.pdf -Chris -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Holstrom, Don Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 5:13 PM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: I don't know enough about DNS Thanks to all of you. It is all making sense. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Durkee, Peter Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 5:10 PM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: I don't know enough about DNS We're running into the same request from emailroi who are apparently going to send out our newsletters. I haven't succeeded in getting the domainkeys record in our DNS yet as the web based gui we use to make DNS changes doesn't like the underscore character that starts off the record name. Just make sure that you include the o=~ part of the _domainkey record, so the rest of the world doesn't expect all your outgoing mail to have a domainkey signature. Peter -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris Scharff Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 13:47 To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: I don't know enough about DNS I know their solution pretty well and have some friends working there so if you get stuck..... What they might be suggesting is that if you have SPF records it can help reduce the likelihood that mail sent to your constituents is flagged as spam. The content of online donation solicitation and advocacy often has very similar characteristics to phishing and general spam. If you were to create SPF records, you'd want to create them not only for the Convio MTAs, but also for your own. HTH, Scharff -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Holstrom, Don Posted At: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 2:42 PM Posted To: swynk Conversation: I don't know enough about DNS Subject: I don't know enough about DNS But I believe Convio (a database-driven website and e-mailer) is asking me to add a line to our DNS so that e-mails sent by them with our address get through spam filtration. AFAIK it's some sort of domain key so yahoo e-mail gets through. Is there any harm in this, are any of you using this? A very long line of text. And others may follow for AOL and such. _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Web Interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=exchange To subscribe: http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] com Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with. ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is private or privileged. If you are not the person for whom this message is intended, please delete it and notify me immediately, and please do not copy or send this message to anyone else. 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