Home | About Spam | About SpamBouncer | Downloads | Configuration | Reference | Resources
What is Spam? | Types of Spam | How Spammers Work | Avoiding Spam | Filtering Spam | Spam Complaints | Fighting Spam | Glossary
Under Construction Under Construction
When this is complete, it will contain a glossary of terms used by those fighting spam, and an explanation of what they mean.
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
Name.
Bandwidth. The maximum rate at which an Internet connection can transfer information. In other words, the size of the pipe between a server and the internet.
Name.
COI. Confirmed opt-in. The practice of checking back with users who request to receive bulk email to ensure that the subscriber did in fact make that request, and that email address the subscriber provided belongs to them. The most common type of COI is to send an email message to the email address that the subscriber provided when asking to join an email list, requesting that the subscriber either respond to that email, or visit a web URL. When the subscriber does so, the subscription request is confirmed. If the subscriber does not confirm the request, no bulk email is sent to that email address.
COI prevents typos from causing the wrong people to be added to a bulk email list, and prevents anyone from using a bulk email list to mailbomb innocent people. It also provides evidence that email was solicited if a subscriber forgets that they asked for that email and reports it as spam.
Colocation. A company that rents space in their server room and use of an internet connection to other individuals or companies who own their own servers. A colocation facility usually has multiple, redundant internet connections and is therefore able to provide more bandwidth, and a more reliable internet connection, than a small or medium-sized company has on their own network. Most colocation facilities also manage the colocated servers in their server room, either as part of the colocation agreement or for a separate fee. ISPs and web hosting providers are the most common operators of colocation facilities.
Confirmed Opt-In. See COI.
Name.
Name.
Email Sending Provider. See ESP.
ESP. Email sending provider. A company that provides outsourced bulk email services for other companies. Many large companies use ESPs to send out email marketing campaigns and manage their customer service email lists. In the middle and late 1990s, when companies were just getting started on the Internet, early ESPs were mostly spam-for-hire companies who made few or no efforts to ensure that the bulk email they sent went to people who had asked to receive it. Fortunately, many ESPs learned that it was not in their best interests to spam. Today you are as unlikely to get spam from a responsible ESP as you are from a responsible ISP.
Name.
FQDN. Fully qualified domain name. The host plus domain for a server on the Internet. For example, if you have a web server named mail in the domain example.com, its FQDN is mail.example.com.
Fully qualified domain name. See FQDN.
Name.
Geek. Someone intensely interested in and familiar with computers, the internet, and usually a number of other highly technical subjects. As a result, geeks often seem to other people to exist in a world of their own, and speak a language that they think is English (or whatever), but most non-geeks think is some strange artificial dialect out of a science fiction novel. Geeks think it's a compliment to be called a geek. Non-geeks rarely mean it as a compliment. <G>
Name.
Name.
Internet Service Provider. See ISP.
ISP. Internet service provider.. A company that provides internet connectivity to individuals and other companies. ISPs often also offer a range of related services, such as email, web site hosting, colocation facilities, and other less common services.
Name.
Name.
Name.
LART. Luser attitude re-adjustment tool. Geek slang that means a complaint that firmly corrects some abusive or wrong behavior by a luser. A luser is another geek slang term, and means a user who is unfamiliar with computers and the internet, and who did something really stupid or destructive. The "tool" refers to the baseball bat or two-by-four that the system administrator who must fix the mess made by this particular user wishes they could use to pound some sense into the user. <G>
Name.
Mailbomb. Sending either a few very large emails, or many smaller emails, to a particular email address with the intent of filling up the user's mailbox and making that email address temporarily unusable.
Mainsleaze. An adjective for unsolicited bulk email sent by or on behalf of otherwise legitimate companies. For example, if a company takes the email addresses of everyone who contacts their sales department with a question and puts those email addresses on a bulk email list without first asking for and receiving permission from the recipients, email sent to that bulk email list is mainsleaze spam. If a company hires an ESP to send marketing email to the ESP's own lists, and the ESP did not get prior permission from each user on its list to send that type of email, that bulk email is also mainsleaze spam. (Companies are responsible for the actions of their agents -- the people or other companies that they hire to act on their behalf.) If a legitimate company persistently sends bulk email to people who did not request it, that company is a mainsleaze spammer.
Name.
Name.
Opt-In. The practice of sending bulk email only to people who have specifically requested to receive it. See also COI.
Opt-Out. The practice of sending bulk email to people who have not specifically requested to receive it, and requiring them to ask to be removed from the bulk email list if they do not want to get that email.
Name.
Name.
Name.
rDNS. Reverse DNS. The name that a DNS server assigns to a particular IP, and returns when queried for that IP's name. Servers that should be sending email to users outside of a local network or domain should always be assigned an FQDN in your DNS servers. Otherwise, the email they send may be blocked by the recipients.
Name.
Name.
Spam. A derogatory term for unsolicited bulk email, bulk email that the recipient did not ask to receive.
Spammer. A derogatory term for an individual or business that sends unsolicited bulk email.
Spam-for-Hire. A derogatory term for unsolicited bulk email sent by an ESP.
Spammer-for-Hire. A derogatory term for an ESP that either deliberately, or through carelessness/indifference, sends significant quantities of unsolicited bulk email. Some spam-for-hire companies are simply spammers themselves and send no legitimate, non-spam email. Others have a mixture of customers that send spamming opt-out bulk email, and customers that send legitimate, opt-in bulk email.
If an ESP gains the reputation for being a spam-for-hire outfit, it usually ends up widely blocked and therefore has difficulty delivering email.
System administrator. A person responsible for managing a company's servers and network. At any company that isn't an ISP or web hosting company, the system administrator (one a system administrator) is usually in charge of the company mail server, and responsible for preventing spam from reaching the company's employees.
Name.
Name.
UBE. Unsolicited bulk email. Email that is both unsolicited and bulk Unsolicited refers to email sent to users who did not specifically and in advance request to receive that email. Bulk refers to substantially identical emails sent to many users. Unsolicited personal email is not abusive -- it is perfectly acceptable to send an email to anyone for whom you have an email address if they have not specifically asked you not to send them email. Solicited bulk email is also not abusive -- many people sign to get announcements from a company or organization, or to participate in a bulk email list. Only email that is both unsolicited and bulk is abusive. This email is commonly called spam and is loathed by most internet users.
Unsolicited bulk email. See UBE.
Name.
Name.
Web hosting provider. A company that hosts web sites for other companies, either by offering colocation services for companies with their own web servers, or by providing large web servers that can host many web sites. Most web hosting companies do some of both.
Name.
Name.
Name.
Name.