5 ms·

If someone could indicate which services don't require domain verification, that could be extraordinarily helpful to some of us.

by paul_f 11y ago

eropple 11y ago
I'm a novice to transactional email; what sorts of use cases would make not verifying a domain name an (ethically) good thing? I can't think of a case where that wouldn't scream "spam", but I'm not sure about that. =)
- mgkimsal 11y ago
  verification of some sort should be a requirement, but in some cases domain verification is harder to do than a single email address verification. I don't always have control over the DNS (which is always how I've seen domain verification done), and getting access to it, or having someone change it for me, might take days or weeks (or get done wrong, or whatnot). I'm dealing with a couple of clients right now where any change request like that takes 2 weeks - that's just standard policy. But... we can verify "foo@company.com" as a single address immediately. This isn't to say domain verification is a bad thing, but depending on how it's done, it's not always the first thing you can tick off on a project.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    If you can't change the DNS records, how will you set up DKIM/SPF/DMARC? And what's the point of validating the domain before setting those up?
    - mgkimsal 11y ago
      I was saying that sometimes you can't update any of that quickly, but you can - via amazon ses, for example - validate a single address. Doing that will allow you to get past at least part of a project's set up and keep moving until you can get dns issues updated. it's not a 'never do it', but 'that can come a bit later without being a roadblock' issue, imo.
  - eropple 11y ago
    But email is all externalities. Is the convenience of you being able to send email more important than the anti-spam management of "yes, we actually own this thing"? (icebraining's points regarding DKIM and SPF are more practical and, IMO, accurate, but the collective problem is more interesting to me.)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- paul_f 11y ago
  Such as my business which provides a SaaS service and email is one of the features. Small business customers don't always have the ability to update DKIM/SPF, especially is using GMail for example for email.
daigoba66 11y ago
Amazon SES doesn't require domain verification unless you want to be able to send from arbitrary email addresses for that domain. If you have a known set of senders, you can verify just those email addresses (which works the usual way: email is sent and you click a link).
TomBombadildoze 11y ago
> some of us truly, these are challenging times for spammers
martinald 11y ago
I don't know why this is getting downvoted. A bunch of people in our coworking space have this exact problem. They run SaaS bookings for companies. They (and their clients) want them to come from reservations@companyname.com so people can reply easily to their reservation and go to them. Current options look like setting up something like reply-companyname@saasplatform.com and then have a hook send it to the actual address, which seems like a bit of hassle, but maybe this is the cost of progress on spam. Asking non-tech clients to configure DKIM/SPF is a problem for them.
- icebraining 11y ago
  You can't avoid DKIM/SPF by choosing a sending company that doesn't validate; you'll just get your emails dropped by the receiver. And since Sparkpost lets you validate the domain using a DNS record, you can just add it along with the DKIM/SPF.
  - martinald 11y ago
    But Mandrill didn't require any of this wizardy and noones emails got dropped?
    - icebraining 11y ago
      noones emails got dropped Yes, they did. I'm the tech guy for a small cultural society, and their emails sent with Mandrill did get dropped by Gmail and other servers before I configured the SPF/DKIM records. There's a reason why even Mandrill mandates SPF/DKIM for new accounts: https://mandrill.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205582267-About-SPF-and-DKIM https://mandrill.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205582267-Abo...
- mvitorino 11y ago
  See response from daigoba66 below. AWS SES allows single address verification (not domain) via click on link received.

If someone could indicate which services don't require domain verification, that could be extraordinarily helpful to some of us.

by paul_f 11y ago

If someone could indicate which services don't require domain verification, that could be extraordinarily helpful to some of us.

eropple 11y ago

I'm a novice to transactional email; what sorts of use cases would make not verifying a domain name an (ethically) good thing? I can't think of a case where that wouldn't scream "spam", but I'm not sure about that. =)

mgkimsal 11y ago
verification of some sort should be a requirement, but in some cases domain verification is harder to do than a single email address verification. I don't always have control over the DNS (which is always how I've seen domain verification done), and getting access to it, or having someone change it for me, might take days or weeks (or get done wrong, or whatnot). I'm dealing with a couple of clients right now where any change request like that takes 2 weeks - that's just standard policy. But... we can verify "foo@company.com" as a single address immediately. This isn't to say domain verification is a bad thing, but depending on how it's done, it's not always the first thing you can tick off on a project.
- icebraining 11y ago
  If you can't change the DNS records, how will you set up DKIM/SPF/DMARC? And what's the point of validating the domain before setting those up?
  - mgkimsal 11y ago
    I was saying that sometimes you can't update any of that quickly, but you can - via amazon ses, for example - validate a single address. Doing that will allow you to get past at least part of a project's set up and keep moving until you can get dns issues updated. it's not a 'never do it', but 'that can come a bit later without being a roadblock' issue, imo.
- eropple 11y ago
  But email is all externalities. Is the convenience of you being able to send email more important than the anti-spam management of "yes, we actually own this thing"? (icebraining's points regarding DKIM and SPF are more practical and, IMO, accurate, but the collective problem is more interesting to me.)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
paul_f 11y ago
Such as my business which provides a SaaS service and email is one of the features. Small business customers don't always have the ability to update DKIM/SPF, especially is using GMail for example for email.

daigoba66 11y ago

Amazon SES doesn't require domain verification unless you want to be able to send from arbitrary email addresses for that domain. If you have a known set of senders, you can verify just those email addresses (which works the usual way: email is sent and you click a link).

TomBombadildoze 11y ago

> some of us truly, these are challenging times for spammers

martinald 11y ago

I don't know why this is getting downvoted. A bunch of people in our coworking space have this exact problem. They run SaaS bookings for companies. They (and their clients) want them to come from reservations@companyname.com so people can reply easily to their reservation and go to them. Current options look like setting up something like reply-companyname@saasplatform.com and then have a hook send it to the actual address, which seems like a bit of hassle, but maybe this is the cost of progress on spam. Asking non-tech clients to configure DKIM/SPF is a problem for them.

icebraining 11y ago
You can't avoid DKIM/SPF by choosing a sending company that doesn't validate; you'll just get your emails dropped by the receiver. And since Sparkpost lets you validate the domain using a DNS record, you can just add it along with the DKIM/SPF.
- martinald 11y ago
  But Mandrill didn't require any of this wizardy and noones emails got dropped?
  - icebraining 11y ago
    noones emails got dropped Yes, they did. I'm the tech guy for a small cultural society, and their emails sent with Mandrill did get dropped by Gmail and other servers before I configured the SPF/DKIM records. There's a reason why even Mandrill mandates SPF/DKIM for new accounts: https://mandrill.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205582267-About-SPF-and-DKIM https://mandrill.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205582267-Abo...
mvitorino 11y ago
See response from daigoba66 below. AWS SES allows single address verification (not domain) via click on link received.