This is another installment of our Spam Blacklist Removal Series. In the first post, I covered how to remove your IP from Yahoo’s blacklist. I recommend reading the first post as there is some details on there about how to proceed that are applicable to any blacklist removal process. In rackAID’s Linux support services, I often deal with people who have had their servers blacklisted. One thing I have learned is to be patient and follow the ISP’s instructions carefully.
For Earthlink, the process involves:
- Emailing Earthlink’s postmaster at a special address
- Reading the response email
- Cleaning up any blacklist issues if you have them
- Submitting your IP for removal from Earthlink’s blacklist
As mentioned with Yahoo!, this procedure will not help you if you do not fix the problem. If you’ve fixed the problem, then read on to learn how to get removed from Earthlink’s blacklist.
Blocked by “[email protected]”
If you get a bounce with the following:
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: [person]@earhtlink.com
Technical details of permanent failure: PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 8): 550 550 Dynamic/zombied/spam IPs blocked. Write [email protected]
The you have likely been blocked by Earthlink’s spam filtering system. Over the years, Earthlink acquired many smaller ISPs. As a result, there are many domains that may be impacted by having your email server IP listed on Earthlink’s list.
Call the Postmaster
Earthlink’s postmaster information is a bit scattered. Right now, the best resource is a knowledgebase article, which will provide you with links to key policies and procedures for email.
In most cases, you will want to email [email protected], you will get a reply within a couple of minutes with the following:
Thank you for writing [email protected]. This is an automated response to the email you sent to this address.
PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE EMAIL TO RESOLVE YOUR ISSUE
This email address is only for those issues where EarthLink appears to be blocking a mail server and mail is returned with the following error messages: "550 Dynamic/zombied/spam IPs blocked. Write [email protected]".
EarthLink may be blocking your mail server because the server is/was listed in a dynamic IP range, an open proxy, a compromised machine, or major source of spam.
In order to help you with your issue we will need some information from you. If you are the administrator of this mail server, please follow the instructions below before emailing us back.
If you do not know what IP address your server is sending with, please contact the mail administrator of your company or your ISP and have them follow the instructions below.
If you are the administrator of the email server being blocked, please know you may be able to expedite unblocking by checking to see if your mail server is listed in the following lists and resolving before emailing us:
The CBL http://cbl.abuseat.org/lookup.cgi
This is a list of IPs that may be currently infected and sending spam unknowingly.
Spamhaus http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/index.lasso
From their website you will be able to query your IP to see if it listed in any of their 3 lists that track dynamic IPs, zombied IPs, and IPs that are known to purposely send spam. EarthLink blocks IPs known to be dynamic, zombied, and purposely sending spam.
If your mail server/gateway IP is not on these lists, is not dynamic, and is not an open relay/proxy/zombie, please reply back to [email protected] with 'BLOCKED ' in the subject line with the mail server/gateway IP inserted.
[email protected] does not block any mail sent to it; so, if possible, please email us from the server in question. All reports sent to this address, not using this format will receive this auto response. This process will allow us minimize the amount of time to resolve any blocking issues. Please note, any emails you send to us without the formatted subject lines are not kept. If you included important information in that first unblock request, please make sure that information is included in your subject-formatted response.
Thank you for your cooperation,
EarthLink Abuse
As they say, read the entire email and simply comply with their request. At rackAID, we use DNSStuff to do RBL lookups. If you are clear of the RBLs, then you can email Earthlink your server’s IP address.
Be sure to format your email exactly as they request or it will not work:
‘BLOCKED ‘ in the subject line with the mail server/gateway IP inserted.
Bulk Senders
I could not find any specific information regarding sending bulk email to Earthlink accounts. Yahoo! has a special form to fill out. The most information I could find was a policies page , which has a useful list of all of Earthlink’s domains.
Review
To get out of Earthlink’s blacklist, simply email your IP to the [email protected] email address. Be sure that your system is clean before you do so. You certainly do not want to get listed again and lower your sender reputation.