Eligibility
The Spamhaus Whitelist has strict eligibility criteria but one rule stands out above the rest and that is: Absolutely no marketing or soliciting bulk email of any sort.
Unlike traditional whitelists, the Spamhaus Whitelist is not a service to help bulk mail senders improve delivery rates. You can not whitelist an IP address or domain that is used for sending marketing or soliciting bulk email, or used for sending any email on behalf of third patries. This rule therefore automatically excludes (makes not eligibile for whitelisting) Email Service Providers, ISP customer mail relays and mail servers used by third-parties, and all bulk mailing list servers and services.
The Spamhaus Whitelist operates a policy of ‘Know Your User’, which means that owners/operators of mail servers elegible for whitelisting must know their users personally, either because all users are part of the organization that operates the mail server or are company machines (such as ecommerce servers).
THE SPAMHAUS WHITELIST
The Spamhaus Whitelist allows mail servers to separate incoming email traffic into 3 categories: Good, Bad and Unknown.
Corporate mail servers, such as:
- Corporations - Accountancy firms - Law firms - Banks Government mail servers, such as: - Government Agencies - Health Authorities - Local Authorities - Law Enforcement Agencies - Defense Agencies Transactional mail servers, such as: - Airline flight booking systems - Online Banking systems - Ecommerce systems - Automated Billing systems
Bulk Email Senders
Mail servers used for sending any type of advertising or marketing bulk email are not eligible for whitelisting, no matter how solicited and spam-free the mailings are. ISP customer mail relays ISP mail servers which are used by customers to send email are not eligible for whitelisting. ESP customer mail relays Any IP address or domain used to send email for, or on behalf of, third parties is not elegible for whitelisting.
Know Your User
Know Your User Whitelist account holders must personally know or employ each sender that uses a whitelisted resource. Whitelist account holders must own the mail server equipment, the IP address, and the sender domain (HELO/hostname) used by a whitelisted mailserver.