FBL Processing

FBL Processing

FBL Processing

FBL stands for “Feedback Loop”. As an email marketer, it’s a good approach to get enrolled in ISP FBL programs. In this way, you will get notified every time a SPAM complaint is reported by one of your recipients. This FBL reports must be processed and following actions must be taken:

  • Identify the SPAM complaint owner recipient
  • Unsubscribe from your lists
  • Add to the suppression list
  • Make sure you never send an email to that recipient
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WARNING: Sending emails to recipients who have filed a spam complaint will damage your delivery reputation, get your IP addresses and send domains black listed. Just like bounce processing, FBL processing is very crucial to keep your email delivery reputation consistent and in good standing.

FBL Program Application

In order to receive FBL reports, you must apply for individual FBL programs for each ISP you are sending to. Under “ISP Information” section, you can find the list of ISP’s that offer Feedback Loop programs. Start from the #1 ISP used by your audience and start applying to all major ones to make sure you have wide FBL coverage.

FBL Processing

Once the FBL program application is completed, the next step is to process them. When applying to FBL programs, you will be asked to enter an email address to receive FBL email addresses. Make sure that you have a separate mailbox dedicated to FBL reports. For example, you can setup a mailbox such as fbl@yourdomain.com and set it in FBL program enrollments.

The next step is to start processing received FBL reports. Processing can be done by Octeth, by PowerMTA or any other third party software/service. In this chapter, we described how to perform FBL processing by Octeth and PowerMTA.

Octeth

Octeth can connect to your FBL mailbox and process received FBL reports. To enable this feature, go to [Admin Area → Settings → Email Delivery → SPAM Complaints] tab:

FBL report processing settings can be found in the admin area → settings section.
FBL report processing settings can be found in the admin area → settings section.

In this section, you can define email addresses and other settings related to the Spam Complaint and FBL processing.

SPAM Complaint Settings

NameDescription
Abuse Reports

Enter the email address you would like to receive abuse and spam complaints. This email address will not be disclosed publicly.

Complaints

This email address will be added to outgoing email headers as “x-complaints-to”. Do not set your personal email address for this setting. In order to align domains inside outgoing emails, you can use %sender_domain% merge tag to make sure the complaints email address is always the same with the sender domain. Example: complaints@%sender_domain%

FBL Email

The email address which has been submitted to FBL programs such as Outlook JMRP, Google FBL, etc.

List Unsubscribe Email

The email address set here will be added to outgoing email “list-unsubscribe:” headers. List-unsubscribe header email address (or URL) receives a copy of the unsubscription request processed by the ESP. If you leave this field empty, Oempro will set the list-unsubscribe email address to the MFROM sender domain set in the Delivery Server settings.

Monitoring Method

Choose POP3/IMAP and enter connection parameters. “Email Piping/CLI” option will be deprecated in future versions.

Choose “POP3/IMAP Connection” option for the “Monitoring Method” setting. Once it’s chosen, you will be asked to enter connection parameters for the FBL mailbox. Enter the IMAP host, port, username and password of your FBL report mailbox. Octeth will start processing incoming FBL reports and detected ones will be registered to the system:

  • The spam complaint owner recipient will be unsubscribed from the list
  • The spam complaint owner recipient will be added to the suppression list

PowerMTA

You may prefer PowerMTA to process incoming FBL reports instead of Octeth. In such case, you must point your FBL email address MX server to your PowerMTA server and peform a set of configuration in the PowerMTA configuration file.

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For more information about PowerMTA inbound email and FBL processing, please refer to PowerMTA’s documentation (chapter 12).

First of all, you must enable “relaying” for the FBL email address domain. To do this, set the following directive in PowerMTA configuration:

relay-domain yourdomain.com

To enable Feedback Loop report processing, set the following directive:

<feedback-loop-processor>
	deliver-unmatched-email no
	deliver-matched-email yes # default: no
	forward-unmatched-to youremail@yourdomain.com
	forward-errors-to youremail@yourdomain.com
	<address-list>
		address /fbl@fbl.yourdomain.com/
	</address-list>
</feedback-loop-processor>

In order to log received FBL reports, enable reporting:

<acct-file /var/log/pmta/fbl.csv>
	records feedback-loop
	record-fields f *,header_X-HmXmrOriginalRecipient
</acct-file>

The best approach to setup FBL email address on your domain is to set a subdomain and point MX records to your PowerMTA server.

If your PowerMTA server is running on 100.100.100.100 IP address, and if your corporate domain is mydomain.com, we recommend you the following setup:

fbl.mydomain.com MX 100.100.100.100

Feedback Loop Email Address: fbl@fbl.mydomain.com

PowerMTA and Octeth FBL Integration

Received FBL reports will be logged into /var/log/pmta/fbl.csv file if you have followed instructions above. This CSV file can be processed and logged email addresses can be added to the global suppression database of Octeth. In this way, these email addresses will be removed from all future email campaign deliveries and you will be in good standing.

ISP Information

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The ISP information list on this page has been taken from Word To The Wise Blog. Please visit Laura’s blog to get access to the most up-to-date information regarding ISP’s.

Last updated on 8th May 2022

ISPPostmaster siteFeedback LoopWhitelistSupport
AOL

Postmaster Website

FBL signup

Whitelist Signup

AOL support pagesAOL Postmaster Blog

AT&T

Postmaster pages

does not offer

does not offer

SMTP errors listBlocklist removal form

Bellsouth (AT&T)

does not offer

does not offer

Charter

Postmaster pages

does not offer

does not offer

Comcast

Postmaster pages

FBL Signup

does not offer

Blocklist removal form

Cox

Postmaster pages

FBL Signup

does not offer

Blocklist removal form

Earthlink

Postmaster pages

Send email to fblrequest@abuse.earthlink.net

does not offer

Blocked users

Excite

Postmaster pages

FBL Signup

does not offer

does not offer

Fastmail

FBL Signup

GMX

mail.com

Gmail

bulk senders guidelines

FBLFBL Signup for ESPs

does not offer

Troubleshooting

Hotmail (Outlook)

Hotmail

Integra

does not offer

does not offer

does not offer

Juno

United Online

Live.com (Outlook)

Hotmail

Mail.com

Postmaster page

does not offer

does not offer

Contact Form

Mail.ru

Postmaster.mail.ru

FBL Signup

Netzero

United Online

Office365

Technet

OpenSRS

Tucows

Outlook

Postmaster Website

JMRPP Signup

does not offer

Outlook support pages

QQ

Postmaster pages

does not offer

does not offer

Rackspace

emailsrvr.com

FBL Signup

does not offer

postmaster@emailsrvr.com

Roadrunner

Postmaster pages

FBL Signup

does not offer

Support Request Page

Synacor

FBL Signup

Telenor

FBL Signup

Terra.com.br

FBL Signup

Time Warner Cable

RoadRunner

Tucows

does not offer

FBL Signup

does not offer

does not offer

United Online

Postmaster pages

does not offer

Whitelist Signup

Unblocking Form

Usa.net

Postmaster website

FBL Signup

does not offer

IP lookup form

Verizon

does not offer

Whitelist Signup

does not offer

Yahoo

Postmaster Pages

FBL Signup

Yahoo! Mail Bulk Sender Form

Detailed Delivery AdvicePostmaster Help

XS4ALL

FBL Signup

Zoho

FBL Signup

Email Delivery and Filtering Details

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The Email Delivery and Filtering list on this page has been taken from Word To The Wise Blog. Please visit Laura’s blog to get access to the most up-to-date information regarding ISP’s.

Last updated on 8th May 2022

ISPConnection LimitsSending LimitsCertificationReputation Providers

AOL

500 emails per connection100 recipients per message

Return Path Certified

AT&T

no published limits

no published limits

Return Path Certified

Bellsouth

no published limits

no published limits

Charter

no published limits

no published limits

no confirmed

Comcast

25 connections per IP address

100 recipients per message

Return Path Certified

Spamhaus Spamhaus ZENCloudmark CSIReturn Path Reputation Network Blacklist.

Cox

5 connections per IP address

100 messages per connection

Return Path Certified

Spamhaus ZenReturn Path DNSBLInvaluement SIP listCloudmark CSISURBLSpamhaus DBLInvaluement URI list

Earthlink

does not publish

does not publish

no known certification services

Excite

10 per IP

10 per connection

Return Path Certified

Cloudmark CSI blocklistSpamcop blocking listReturn Path Senderscore blacklistinternal

Fastmail

Spamhaus XBLSpamassassin

GMX

Gmail

does not publish

not using any

Hotmail

based on the reputation

based on the reputation

Return Path Certified

Integra

no published limits

100 emails per address

Juno

Live.com

Mail.com

very little information available

very little information available

has not published

Mail.ru

Netzero

OpenSRS

Outlook

500 simultaneous connections

QQ

1 connection per IP

1 email per connection

Rackspace

very little information available

very little information available

Return Path Certified

has not published

Roadrunner

do not publish

do not publish

Return Path Certified

Spamhaus ZENReturn Path Reputation Network Blacklist

Synacor

Terra.com.br

Time Warner Cable

Tucows

very little information available

very little information available

Return Path Certified

has not published

United Online

Usa.net

does not publish

does not publish

Return Path Certified

Cloudmark

Verizon

Return Path Certified

not known to use

Yahoo

20 emails per connectionreputation based rate limiting

Return Path Certified

Spamhaus XBLSpamhaus PBL

Zoho

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