General Question

LostInParadise's avatar

What does it mean for an email message header to have multiple domains?

Asked by LostInParadise (31914points) November 13th, 2020
5 responses
“Great Question” (2points)

I tried to mark an email message as spam in my Earthlink email. I got the following reply:

The option to add a domain to your Blocked Sender List is not available with this selection. If you selected multiple messages when you clicked This is spam, try selecting one message at a time to reveal that option. Note: The option may still not appear if a message’s headers contain multiple domains.

I only selected one email to remove, so I assume that the note at the end applies.

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Answers

Zaku's avatar

I expect it means that the header information can’t narrow the email origin down to one domain name, and the spam filter is programmed not just block multiple domain names when it finds more than one in the header, to reduce users blocking more domains than they really intend or understand they are doing.

Does it let you block domains without referring to an email? If so, you could look at the header details yourself, and add filters for the ones that you’re sure you want to never get email from.

LostInParadise's avatar

Thanks. I will have to check it out.

Zaku's avatar

Sure. Oh, another major reason that would make sense for them to program it that way, is a great many spam and pfishing emails deliberately use an innocent domain name (like that of a company they think might send you legitimate email), as well as whatever they’re saying they’re using as a mail server.

So if they blocked all domains in the headers, you’d be blocking your bank, or microsoft, or whoever they’re pretending to be or use for a mail host.

Response moderated (Spam)
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