Effective Email

Without effective email communications, online businesses could really suffer. Unfortunately with the amount of anti-spam filtering going on, it appears less legitimate email is getting through each day.

Why can't someone come up with a way to determine which emails are legitimate and which are likely spam?

Obviously if it was that simple, that would have happened already.

New Plans On The Horizon

One of the larger anti-spam companies on line is pushing for a way for legitimate companies to have their email get through.

The British company Spamhaus is pushing for a new tactic.

They are looking to introduce a new top level domain. Top level domains are the .com, .net, .org endings. They are proposing the new top level domain of .mail

The .mail ending would only be registered to legitimate companies which already own the .com version of the names. For example, email coming from this site would be from smallbusinesswebsite.com.mail

Only domain names which have been in existence for at least 6 months can apply. This is to prevent spammers from simply creating new domains as they go and getting .mail accounts with them.

The project will also require more strict WHOIS registration data from the applying companies. This will include an actual physical address which will be verified during the application process.

There are built in verification systems in place for the .mail system since they would be creating it from scratch. This would include the legitimacy of the sender to be determined through authentication systems that weren't set up for other top level domains.

The Downside

The biggest downside to the small business is the cost involved. These .mail domains will be $2,000. This high price is explained two ways:

it will take actual work to verify new applicants

it is a deterrent for spammers to simply apply for hundreds of .mail accounts at $2,000 an application

There is another downside of course.

Will it actually be effective or not?

The system is not actually designed to reduce spam. It is only designed to allow legitimate companies to send their email without any problems.

One consequence of all of this could be additional filtering on email which does not come from .mail accounts. That would be left to be seen of course.

Its interesting to watch the attempts to deal with the email situation. It is recognized that reliable email is a huge portion of effective business marketing online.

Those companies which are positioning themselves to provide a solution to effective email stand to become very wealthy.