AOL DEMARC Policy - uggh!

[rich]

I had to give a complicated reply/explanation to my Bishop about a brain dead policy AOL and potentially Yahoo have started enforcing that will reject church broadcast email...

Has anyone found a clean workaround?

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Sending email through lds.org/messaging is and has been a problem with AOL for a number of years. They started enforcing a new policy called "DEMARC". I am adding stake clerk-IT counterparts because this is a church-wide issue. Yahoo has started enforcing DEMARC policy as well. Their users hate it: http://www.spamresource.com/2014/04/up- ... olicy.html

Problem definition:
* http://postmaster-blog.aol.com/2014/04/ ... to-reject/
** That's what the 554 code means that AOL places in the kick back alerts.
* Summary of an AOL code 554 bounce...

Church broadcast email messages pretend to be coming from your real provider (i.e. gmail.com). DEMARC policy rejects these messages as spam where the DNS address of the real sender (lds.org) doesn't match the "From:" field in the email. (gmail.com).

Solution options:
* Suggest members get a real email provider and dump AOL
** I am aware we can't say this from the pulpit but it would make a clerks life easier!
* A more politically correct statement from a pulpit would be:
** Please be advised AOL is rejecting ward/church broadcast messages. We are working with Church's IT Support to review options to remedy. AOL users please share your email address with your HT, so they know to call you directly in the event of urgent announcements.
* I didn't say it would be a clean message, just the best short term option.
* I've added CHQ's GSC (Global Support Center) to look into this problem, read the AOL DEMARC policy and see if any of the workarounds are reasonable.
* The stake clerk may have a more direct support path with CHQ IT.
* There is nothing more we can do.

[russellhltn]

* The stake clerk may have a more direct support path with CHQ IT.

Not really. By this time, I doubt if it's news to IT. It seems to be the solution is for the church is to stop "spoofing" the sender's address. (Perhaps use a "DoNotReply@ldschurch.org" sender with a "reply to" header being the member's address.)

To do that will take development. The way to get that fix prioritized is to have the Stake President take up the issue with the Area Authority.

[rich]

The way to get that fix prioritized is to have the Stake President take up the issue with the Area Authority.

Thanks... I forwarded your suggestion to the relevant stake president.