Xtra.co.nz domain Blacklisted so email not received in Yahoo Small Business email account

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Xtra.co.nz domain Blacklisted so email not received in Yahoo Small Business email account

jay63

65 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#240255 29-Aug-2018 11:12

I've been told that the Xtra.co.nz domain is currently Blacklisted for emails so I am unable to receive emails from any senders from that domain to my Yahoo Small Business Email account. This seems the case for receiving into other Yahoo.com email addresses from Xtra emails also.

Here is the link that Yahoo Small Business email gave me to show xtra.co.nz Blacklisted for emails - https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=blacklist%3axtra.co.nz&run=toolpage Yahoo Small Biz told me to contact the domain provider (Spark) but as a an hour plus wait time for customer service not possible right now.

This email delivery issue from xtra.co.nz emails has been an on and off issue but now a big problem as both personal and work emails form xtra.co.nz domain not being received for much of the last two weeks. Emails from xtra.co.nz to Gmail and Outlook.com seem to work fine so somewhat isolated to receiving into Yahoo based emails and their related Yahoo small Business domains (me). I'm aware of issues with xtra.co.nz emails but many people still using so need to be able to get their emails.

What does Spark need to do to get this fixed? Any advice appreciated.

1101

3122 posts

Uber Geek

#2080717 29-Aug-2018 11:17

Its been like that for some weeks, I had issues 2 weeks ago

emails to a yahoo adress either going into spam or being bounced completely : ie emails bounced & not delivered
Most did not even get to the spam folder of the yahopo a/c, I had to use gmail.

jay63

65 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#2080720 29-Aug-2018 11:22

Yep - almost exactly 2 week issue for me also from Xtra to Yahoo email addresses. Other (no Xtra/Yahoo combo) domain recipients and/or senders work just fine. My big issue is that a number of clients still use xtra.co.nz as do some friends and quite challenging to have them have to email another email address for me as all set up with my Yahoo Small Business account. Really need Spark to resolve the issue with Yahoo however possible.

Some Xtra emails end in Yahoo Spam, some take 12+ hours to get delivered but most emails receive an undeliverable email response after 24 hours if anything at all. Seems very random but constant issue one way or another.

rawalker

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2083253 3-Sep-2018 14:46

The domain xtra.co.nz is on various blacklists because it either is or was running as an open relay. The subdomain ads.xtra.co.nz has been on blacklists since earlier this year due to its tracking of user info/data. Yahoo mail are obviously using the blacklists on their mail servers. What should also be considered is that many corporate and small business routers/servers also use these blacklists, so any actions by Yahoo (manually whitelisting xtra.co.nz) will only affect their traffic. All the other, unknown and ever growing users of blacklists will continue to reject xtra.co.nz traffic, and most will not send a rejection advice! The only way to sort this out properly is for Spark to contact the blacklist authors and have the entries removed. This would take time, and force Spark to change it's tracking policies. The alternative, as you have noted, is to move to another email service.

jay63

65 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#2083287 3-Sep-2018 15:17

Thanks - very helpful. I let Spark know of this issue over the weekend and the case has been assigned to "Spark Experts" for resolution. Hopefully, they have some knowledge of what needs to happen but not counting on resolution for the Blacklist/open relay reasons you outline. I will try get some form of solution while recommending users switch from XTRA (Spark) to other email providers.

cheshirecat

50 posts

Geek

#2084416 5-Sep-2018 15:53

If Yahoo maintain this blacklist, then they're the only ones that can take the Xtra mail servers off of it. Maybe they're not in a hurry because they're miffed at no longer hosting the domain?

There are probably a lot of compromised accounts on xtra.co.nz that get used to send out spam before being shut down, which could be resulting in the xtra.co.nz mail servers being temporarily blacklisted by some places.

rawalker

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2090632 14-Sep-2018 12:51

Just to clarify - Yahoo, and other Server operators employ filtering software that refers to various on-line third party blacklists. These blacklists are not managed or maintained by Yahoo. Some are longstanding, eg Spamhaus and Suricata, whilst others are more bespoke and target Ad Servers and other malicious sites. It is always possible that Yahoo has their own additional blacklist, like many corporate servers here in NZ who block Facebook, Trademe, Youtube etc.

Also, some Ad Blocking add-on filters for browsers and servers use these same lists. Any individual server operator can whitelist any given domain or subdomain, and thus permit traffic to/from it, regardless of what is listed on the blacklists, but that only effects that server, and not the others in the chain between source and destination.

These blacklists, sometimes referred to as droplists, have been in use for a long time - I recall using Spamhaus on Microsoft Exchange Server in the late 1990's.

The real problem for emails coming from an @xtra.co.nz address is that they will be dropped by the first server they encounter that uses a blacklist that references xtra. Those being sent to an xtra.co.nz address may also encounter a server that drops them. It only requires one server in the chain in either direction to drop the traffic. There will not always be a notification sent to the sender.

The xtra.co.nz and ads.xtra.co.nz have been blacklisted for specific reasons - being an Open Relay, and Ad Tracking respectively. They are not 'temporarily' blacklisted. There is no such category.