We checked the usual suspects: “spammy” writing, being on a black list because a known or suspected email spammer was operating in the same data center, too many bounces from bad email addresses, or faulty email headers, and found nothing.  After more investigation, we learned that Yahoo! had made significant changes to its spam detection policies that were causing many more spam filter false positives.  What’s more, we learned of new email authentication protocol, DomainKeys, which Yahoo! had developed and was checking for.  Authentication prevents “spoofing” by assuring that the email that appears to be from a particular website, really is. DomainKeys can work in conjunction with Goodmail’s certified email.  (See “Anticipating Pay-to-Send Email in Your Inbox” ) 

If you rely on email to communicate with your organization’s members, it is important to follow best practices (and law) regarding permission-based email, have a way to regularly test receipt of your messages, ask your recipients to pro-actively add your email address to their address books or safe lists, and keep an eye on developments with email certification and authentication. 

To attempt to rectify this situation, we checked our website’s email setup at www.dnsreports.com and then contacted our web host provider about making changes, including adding DomainKeys support.  Our provider had no plans to implement DomainKeys, but added an identifier called an SPF record that had been considered standard since 2004. That did not fix the problem, so we submitted an extensive application in mid-February to Yahoo! asking to be put on their “white list” of known, responsible bulk email senders, but as of press time, have not received a decision.  To be safe, we also applied to AOL to be added to their free white list and found their process speedy and simple.  MSN’s Hotmail does not appear to offer a general white list, and we have not noted any problems with Google’s Gmail.