Just Say No to .INFO

So, let me make this really clear.

The .INFO is a domain extension that is used primarily by spammers due to the high availability of desirable domains and low cost of registration.

If you register a .INFO domain, and then send out the URL to anyone via email, there is a very strong chance of it getting blocked.

The saddest case of this I've seen is a particular free email filter that appends its own URL to each email users subsequently send out. That is to say, each message has "We got free mail filtering - see www.ourfreemailfilter.info to find out more" (the URL has been changed to protect the guilty).

Messages including the .INFO domain are seen by SpamButcher as similar to messages containing large .GIF files or originating from Nigeria. It knows they aren't always spam, but there's a real good chance they are.

SpamButcher knows about this particular provider, and we take efforts not to block their users. I don't know much about the company - but they appear at least on the surface to be legitimate. Most other spam utilities have data sets that probably don't allow this exception. I have to suspect most users of this service are having a good chunk of their mail blocked.

What's frustrating is that anyone who's familiar with spam should really know this. I have no idea what kind of drugs they were on when picking the domain. Maybe the marketing department is at fault.

So, if you're registering a new URL - spend the extra $10 / year to get a .COM domain. That is, if you like using email.

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