2011/01/14 by Jérôme Gays.

Orange protects its Messaging Infrastructure with Cloudmark Antispam Solution

Since November 15th, Orange has implemented Cloudmark Antispam Solution in order to protect its messaging infrastructure.
As quoted on Cloudmark site, Sylvain Causse of France Telecom/ Orange points out:

« We selected Cloudmark Antispam Solution considering their expertise and experience in the message security industry, and the high performance and flexibility level of the solutions they provide. We look forward to working with Cloudmark to continue providing the best messaging protection for our customers. »

Like most ISPs and webmail services, the main concerns for Orange are to protect its messaging infrastructure and satisfy its customers.

For email senders, the router rules to be applied to Orange MX have changed and it is necessary to adapt the connectivity on Orange platform in order to avoid temporary or permanent rejections.

Here are some useful guidelines that should be applied when sending emails to Orange:

– The maximum number of simultaneous connections is limited to 3 per MX

Orange manage both @orange.fr and @wanadoo.fr addresses with the same MX servers but sometimes SMTP servers only accept one setting per delivery domain. Therefore, the 3 authorised simultaneous connections have to be shared between these 2 domains; for example: 2 for Orange.fr domain and 1 for wanandoo.fr.

A bad setting can be verified when the following message appears in the sending log file :
421 xxxxxxxxx ME, Too many connections, slow down. Check your settings.

– Do not request more than a 1000 connections per hour

On a day to day basis, everyone knows that you shouldn’t bother someone who is busy and doesn’t have time to answer your question; it is better to come back when this person is free. The same applies to connections: an SMTP dialog has to be polite and respectful. If a connection happens to be denied by an ISP, it is useless to insist on connecting because you might experience more rejections and for longer periods of time.

– Send over a 100 emails per open connection

When you want to send several emails to the same domain, opening and closing a connection to send a single email is quite a bad practice. It is resource consuming and neither the ISPs nor the senders have resources to spare. Once the connection request is accepted by the Orange server, you should use the same session to transmit up to a 100 emails.

If a problem occurs, Orange has a responsive, competent and efficient abuse desk that solves all the questions related to email deliverability on its infrastructure. You just need to write to abuse@orange.fr describing exactly what the problem is and giving the following information as precisely as possible:

The date of occurrence of the problem
The concerned machine IP
The machine Host name
The email sending domain
The SMTP code sent by Orange
Generally, messaging infrastructure departments are extremely busy. Therefore, it is very important to have performed the first diagnostic level by analysing the sending logs before seeking their help. Your request should be as clear and precise as possible and you should be able to answer all the technical questions they might have to ask you.

You have to strictly avoid the “I am blocked, what can I do?” type of email.

The ISPs operators are not supposed to solve sender’s problems and, most of the time, you will find yourself the answer to your questions in the SMTP log file.

All these major changes were necessary in order to protect Orange messaging infrastructure, even though, the fact of switching from a very traditional screening system to a more efficient one, partly based on reputation, unhinges part of the senders of the French messaging ecosystem. Whereas, for a number of years, you could send email easily to French ISPs without being afraid to experience rejection (like for the big webmail services), you will now have to perform a more detailed job improving transparency during the email collection and showing more respect for the internet users and their desire to receive only emails they want in their mail box.

More Information

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