I've just been idly reading about ways to stop people claiming that the emails you send them are spams - hints for mailing list admins etc.
One idea (which pretty much everyone does now!?) is the double opt-in. The idea is simply, person signs up to list (opt in number one) and then you send them an email, with a link/code which they have to visit (opt in number two), to get on the mailing list/website.
So, I was reading about this on the Digital River site . One of the reasons they give for using double opt in for you list is to stop you from emailing spam traps - these are email addresses that exist purely to attract spam - nobody has any reason to email them as they are not real people.
The page then goes on to explain that just one email that's caught in a spam trap could have devastating consequences - as the people who run the spam trap might add you to a block list that's used by lots of ISPs. Fair enough.
However, they then go on to explain that double opt-in will work wonders, because the account isn't a real person, they won't click on the link and will never end up on the list...
Can you see where I'm going yet?
How, exactly, do you send them the opt-in email, without it setting off the spam trap alarms? Or is the plan that every email that arrives at a spam trap address does get manually checked to see if it's only an opt-in email... rather than an actual message to the mailing list?
Hmmm?