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K-State Today

February 8, 2012

Blocks cause problems with delivery of email

Submitted by Rebecca Gould

Over the last month, K-Staters have experienced an increase in blocked email from K-State to several email service providers.  Typically the user will be notified immediately that the email did not go through, however in some instances you might not learn of the block for several days. NOTE: Blocked email is not delivered.

K-Staters who have their eID set to forward to an address that is being blocked are starting to be removed from K-State LISTSERV lists, which is an automatic function within the listservs.

Reasons that K-State finds itself on blocked lists include:

  •  A K-Stater gives away their password typically via a phishing scam and a spammer uses that account to send thousands of spam messages around the world. 
  • K-Staters set their email to forward to an email service provider and mark some of that email as “spam” when viewing it. The email service provider starts thinking K-State is sending spam.

 What you can do?

1. Don’t forward your K-State email to another email service provider.

2. If you forward your K-State email to an off campus address, don't mark anything you get there as spam.  We didn't originate the spam; we are only forwarding all email as per your request.

3. Consider whether another free email provider can better meet your needs. For example, Gmail seems to have fewer problems with forwarded K-State email

K-State and our email service provider are working to get us off the blocked lists. The process to have the university removed from these blocked lists is varied and each time K-State email reappears on a blocked list lengthens the process.