Warning - Ignore Pay for De-Listing Blacklist Service

Posted by Geraldine Hunt on Fri, Jan 17th, 2020

UCEProtect is a public DNSBL, listing IPs that send spam to their spam traps. Some of their blacklists can, and probably will cause collateral damage to innocent users when used to block email. UCEProtect also charges a delisting fee. TitanHQ discourages email administrators from using the UCEProtect blacklist and we do not recommend paying for list removal. The UCEProtect blacklist operates aggressive listing policies. Because of this and the fact that it’s rarely used we see very little actual impact to email flow.

About UCEProtect and Backscatterer.org

Both entities are owned by the same organization. UCEProtect and Backscatterer will list IPs that send spam and/or send backscatter (misdirected bounces). UCEProtect is a public DNSBL that lists IPs that send spam to their spam traps. Backscatter occurs when a bounce message is delivered to an innocent user from whom the spam message did not originate. This can lead to increased load. Backscatter can be prevented by setting up recipient verification and Bounce Address Tag Validation (BATV).

What to do next

TitanHQ recommends ignoring these listings where payment for removal is required. The pay-to-delist model is not well respected in the email industry so UCEProtect has a very limited reach. Many countries have already blocked the UCEProtect server globally, this means the email servers can’t use it.

For more information on how trusted RBLs work, please visit our TitanHQ technical information section.