Jeff
10-29-2004, 03:43 PM
SPF or Sender Policy Framework is an anti-spam measure that has been implemented by a few of the major email providers. It's designed to prove that email messages are coming from a specific domain. The problem is, there's one standard for most sites that use it, but Yahoo and AOL and some other major email providers have each adopted their own, occasionally-incompatible standards, which they use in an attempt to verify the origin of incoming email. Only one spf record can be recognized in a dns zone (for each domain), so some HostPC customers have received SPF errors when sending messages to Yahoo, AOL, etc..
If you are sending to one of these providers from your email account hosted at HostPC, there is a possibility that the message will be rejected by that provider's SPF filtering for non-compliance with the receiving provider's standard. The bounce/error message that you receive from the receiver's email server when you encounter this incompatibility will always refer to SPF, so you will know for certain if SPF is the cause of the message rejection. Those error messages always advise the sender to contact their email provider to address the issue.
HostPC believes SPF is a work-in-progress that many email providers have foolishly and hastily implemented before a standard can be implemented. Our official recommendation and preference is that you make no configuration changes to your account until the standard is implemented in a coordinated, official manner. When that happens, we will automatically reconfigure all email accounts to the new standard.
In the meantime, if you find you are getting email messages frequently rejected due to SPF at a certain provider to which you must send frequently, we can help. HostPC will gladly reconfigure the SPF settings in your account at no charge to meet the standards of that provider. Simply open a helpdesk ticket to request this change.
However, you are cautioned that this no-charge SPF reconfiguration is a ONE-TIME offer. Once we change the SPF configuration, if you find that it breaks your ability to send elsewhere and you want to change it back, we will charge $10 for the second and any subsequent changes to the SPF setting in your domain/account.
We will continue to monitor the situation with SPF and keep our customers informed if the situation changes enough that we need to revise our policy.
For more information on SPF, visit http://spf.pobox.com/ .
If you are sending to one of these providers from your email account hosted at HostPC, there is a possibility that the message will be rejected by that provider's SPF filtering for non-compliance with the receiving provider's standard. The bounce/error message that you receive from the receiver's email server when you encounter this incompatibility will always refer to SPF, so you will know for certain if SPF is the cause of the message rejection. Those error messages always advise the sender to contact their email provider to address the issue.
HostPC believes SPF is a work-in-progress that many email providers have foolishly and hastily implemented before a standard can be implemented. Our official recommendation and preference is that you make no configuration changes to your account until the standard is implemented in a coordinated, official manner. When that happens, we will automatically reconfigure all email accounts to the new standard.
In the meantime, if you find you are getting email messages frequently rejected due to SPF at a certain provider to which you must send frequently, we can help. HostPC will gladly reconfigure the SPF settings in your account at no charge to meet the standards of that provider. Simply open a helpdesk ticket to request this change.
However, you are cautioned that this no-charge SPF reconfiguration is a ONE-TIME offer. Once we change the SPF configuration, if you find that it breaks your ability to send elsewhere and you want to change it back, we will charge $10 for the second and any subsequent changes to the SPF setting in your domain/account.
We will continue to monitor the situation with SPF and keep our customers informed if the situation changes enough that we need to revise our policy.
For more information on SPF, visit http://spf.pobox.com/ .