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Services for Senders and ISPs

Sender Solutions

E-mail abuse, junk e-mail, and fraudulent e-mails (phishing) continue to burden the entire e-mail ecosystem. To help build back consumer trust in the use of e-mail, Microsoft has put in place various policies and technologies to help protect our consumers. However, Microsoft understands that legitimate e-mail senders should not be negatively affected. Therefore, we have established a suite of services to help senders improve their deliverability to Windows Live Hotmail consumers by proactively managing their sending reputation.
Below is an overview of services that can benefit your organization including links for more information:

Service

Benefits

Postmaster
  • A Starting point for any questions related to delivering communications to Windows Live Hotmail users
  • Includes a simple online guide with our policies and requirements
  • An overview of the junk e-mail filters and authentication technologies employed by Microsoft

Sender ID
  • A simple authentication technology that has been adopted by thousands of organizations worldwide
  • Leverages SPF records which have been published by over 10 million domains in the world
  • Helps improve deliverability by verifying your identity and the IPs which send mail from your authenticated domain
  • Help prevent spammers and phishers from sending e-mail from your domains
  • Learn more at http://www.microsoft.com/senderid

Return Path Sender Score Certified E-Mail

Junk E-Mail Reporting Program
  • A free service to provide reports on junk e-mail issues reported by Windows Live Hotmail users
  • Returns the full message with headers of any e-mail marked as “junk” or “phishing”
  • Provides senders an opportunity to clean their e-mail lists and improve the quality of their content
  • Helps identify potential problems with your marketing practices and content
  • Helps improve sender reputation by removing unwanted subscribers from lists
  • Enroll at http://support.msn.com/ and typically start receiving feedback within as little as 72 hours

Smart Network Data Services
  • A free service that provides high-level insight on how users are rating the e-mail they receive and the health of your IP space as viewed by the Windows Live Hotmail system
  • Provides easy online registration and access to data
  • Improves understanding of how our filters rate your e-mail
  • Reveals how many users complained about your e-mail
  • Learn more at http://postmaster.live.com/snds

Support
  • Provides escalation support for deliverability issues. Support information can be found on the Troubleshooting page.

 ISP Solutions

Microsoft understands that no single organization can change or eliminate e-mail abuse on its own. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) play a major role in identifying and curbing abuse as they host millions of e-mail accounts around the world. Therefore, we have built some services to help ISPs gain a good understanding of the type of traffic originating from their networks and reaching Windows Live Hotmail customers. ISPs can then use this data to help stop abusive activity (junk e-mail, phishing, etc.) on their networks in order to reduce overall costs and proactively manage their reputation.
Below is an overview of services that can benefit your organization including links for more information:

Service

Benefits

Postmaster
  • A Starting point for any questions related to delivering communications to Windows Live Hotmail users
  • Includes a simple online guide with our policies and requirements
  • An overview of the junk e-mail filters and authentication technologies employed by Microsoft

Sender ID
  • A simple authentication technology that has been adopted by thousands of organizations worldwide
  • Leverages SPF records which have been published by over 10 million domains in the world
  • Helps improve deliverability by verifying your identity and the IPs which send mail from your authenticated domain
  • Help prevent spammers and phishers from sending e-mail from your domains
  • Learn more at http://www.microsoft.com/senderid

Junk E-Mail Reporting Program
  • A free service to provide reports on junk e-mail issues reported by Windows Live Hotmail users
  • Returns the full message with headers of any e-mail marked as “junk” or “phishing”
  • Helps identify customer accounts or PCs that are being used to send junk e-mail
  • Enroll at http://support.msn.com/ and typically start receiving feedback within as little as 72 hours

Smart Network Data Services
  • A free service that provides high-level insight on how users are rating the e-mail they receive and the health of your IP space as viewed by the Windows Live Hotmail system
  • Provides easy online registration and access to data
  • ISPs can realize cost savings by clamping down on spammers using their network
  • ISPs can improve their customer satisfaction by improving their deliverability
  • Learn more at http://postmaster.live.com/snds

Support
  • Provides escalation support for deliverability issues. Support information can be found on the Troubleshooting page.

Report junk e-mail originating from Windows Live Hotmail

Sometimes Windows Live Hotmail is used by third parties to send junk e-mail, in violation of our terms of use and policy. If you receive any junk e-mail from Windows Live Hotmail you can report these messages to report_spam@hotmail.com. Please attach the offending messages in RFC2822 or ARF format.