X-Bounce-Tracking-Info causes spam?

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daveha

New Member
Hi,

I wonder if you can help me with a question on email delivery: I sent a newsletter with MBM 7.9.2 and some of the recipient's mail providers flagged it as spam:

AOL: Flagged the email as spam without giving any details on the cause. The spam filter's sensitivity of the mail account was set to default.

GMX: Their spam filter tells that the header of the email contains "typical properties of a spam mail".

Mail provider with SpamAssassin:
- Points: 8.5
- Rule Name: "RM_ha_tracking"
- Description: "There is a tracking header in the email"

Hotmail and Yahoo did not flag it as spam.

I found nothing special in the email header except this: "X-Bounce-Tracking-Info: (...)" which seems to be added by MBM. I assume that this caused the flagging? What is the purpose of this item and how can it be deactivated?

Thanks a lot for your help!
 
stanbusk

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
That would be weird, headers are for sending info. That header is for sending info in case the message bounces, you can then insert bounce info into MLM statistics.
 
D

daveha

New Member
Hi stanbusk,

Thank you very much for your answer. I used MBM before and the tracking header was not a problem then. It looks as if those major mail providers / spam filters now classify the tracking header as a characteristic of spam. Do you need more details of the mail I sent in order to clarify this?

For further mailings I should know how the tracking header can be deactivated in MBM 7.9.2. I don't use MLM and would hate to change to another mailing tool just to keep a high delivery success rate.
 
stanbusk

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
A message is flagged as spam for many reasons, not only one. Each reason will increase a score, you will get more information on this here.

This header is added only if you use MLM. If you don't use it deactivate from the MaxBulk Mailer preferences.
 
D

daveha

New Member
Thank you for the link to SpamAssassin. What made me worry and believe that the bounce tracking info was the main reason for the spam classification was the report I got from the spam detection software of that mail provider running SpamAssassin:

Code: 
pts rule name              description
---- ---------------------- --------------------------------------------------
8.5 RM_ha_tracking         There is a tracking header in the email
0.0 T_FRT_STOCK2           BODY: ReplaceTags: Stock (2)
0.0 T_FRT_CONTACT          BODY: ReplaceTags: Contact
-1.9 BAYES_00               BODY: Bayes spam probability is 0 to 1%
                           [score: 0.0000]
0.0 HTML_MESSAGE           BODY: HTML included in message
-1.0 CTASD_SPAM_UNKNOWN     CTASD: Unknown
0.5 OBFU_1                 Obfuscated text (1)

However I could not find a rule by that name in SpamAssassin's directory and will request more details from the mail provider.

I could not figure out how to deactivate the header in MBM's preferences. There is a section "Email Header" but no headers are defined there. Could you tell me where exactly it can be deactivated? Thanks in advance for your support.
 
D

daveha

New Member
Yes. Probably other providers use a similar filtering rule. I prefer to deactivate the bounce tracking info. Where in MBM's preferences can I do that?
 
stanbusk

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
I have never heard of such thing, I am quite surprised. Furthermore such rule is nonsense, all commercial emails use tracking. MLM can be deactivated from the preferences.
 
D

daveha

New Member
Sorry for bothering you again but I still haven't found out where MLM can be deactivated. Attached please find the settings of the MBM version I use. Could you advise where exactly it can be done? Thank you so much!
 
stanbusk

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
Did you delete the MLM URL on the second panel or did you send your message with those settings? By the way you should consider using current MaxBulk Mailer version.
 
D

daveha

New Member
Yes, the message that contained the bounce tracking info was sent with those settings = with an empty MLM URL field.
 
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