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Send email to yahoogroups.com

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eschamp
2008-04-16
2013-06-03
  • eschamp

    eschamp - 2008-04-16

    I would like to have a form by which a person can subscribe to a yahoogroups list that I run, but when I test the form, the email address of the sender is not my actual email address!

    Rather it uses the domain name of my web hosting company!!

    How do I fix the script?

    Thanks.

     
    • TNTEverett

      TNTEverett - 2008-04-16

      If you try to hack the from address to something other than your web host domain the email will be more likely to be treated as SPAM.  I suggest you contact Yahoo and see if there is some way for you to implement this without violating Yahoo's usage or SPAM policies. 

       
    • eschamp

      eschamp - 2008-04-16

      Why would mail to yahoo from a legitimate email address be treated as spam?

      What I would like is that the email address the form user enters on the form be used as the email address the form data are sent from.

      If you can tell me how to do that, I will see if it causes any problems with yahoo.

      Thx.

       
      • TNTEverett

        TNTEverett - 2008-04-16

        The mail sent as part of your form submission comes from your web host's server not from the PC of the person filling in your form.  Even if you change the from address the email header indicates it came from your web host.  This is considered SPAM because you are essentially attempting to mask where the email is coming from. 

        Example:
        person filling in your form with email address me@hotmail.com
        your form is located at cheaphosting.com or yourcompany.com

        So the spam rule is that a sender must be sending from the same domain.  The me@hotmail.com email account sends using hotmail.com server.  If you use your own email account you@yourcompany.com uses the yourcompany.com server. 

         
        • eschamp

          eschamp - 2008-04-16

          I understand everything you said.

          Where did this spam rule come from?

          If you know how I can change the script, I would like to try it.

          Thanks.

           
          • TNTEverett

            TNTEverett - 2008-04-16

            SPAM is everywhere.  You can not hide from it, no one can.  You get it, you have some method to deal with it.  Your email program gets it, your email program has methods to deal with it.  Your web host gets it, your web host has methods of dealing with it and since they are an emai server they have methods of preventing it.  Get my point?  There are many merthods of dealing with SPAM, and just as many variations and rules applied to email to prevent SPAM.  I am not saying that this WILL happen, I am just saying that it is more likely to happen because you are essentially masking the from address and this can be considered SPAM.  It is clear that Yahoo has some rule to this effect because what you are attempting to do is getting blocked, right?  Contact them and ask why it might fail.  With this information I am sure you won't be surprised by their response.  You may or may not be able to convince them to let you do what you want. 

             
            • eschamp

              eschamp - 2008-04-16

              I get it. But as you say, "…I am just saying that it is more likely to happen because you are essentially masking the from address…"

              I would like to try. When I see that it has been blocked, then I will have more info with which to approach them.

              Thanks.

               
    • eschamp

      eschamp - 2008-04-17

      Here's what my webhost customer support said:

      In order for that to work you would have to use your own custom  form
      script, and have it sent out through SMTP rather than sendmail or php
      mail.

      You can use nms formmail, and have it send over SMTP. This way it'll come
      from a mail user you specify.

      http://nms-cgi.sourceforge.net/formmail_compat-3.14c1/README

      particularly this part:

                    If your web server lacks a sendmail binary, you can
                    use an SMTP relay instead, by setting $mailprog
      like
                    this:

                  $mailprog = 'SMTP:mailhost.your.domain';

      However, I found that by simply defining a $from variable, I could make phpformgen work with Yahoo!

      Thank you for your suggestions. Anyone who wants to see my processor.php file let me know.

       
      • TNTEverett

        TNTEverett - 2008-04-18

        There are many ways to acomplish this.  If anyyone is interested in the SMTP option here is a simple example that works. 
        http://email.about.com/od/emailprogrammingtips/qt/et073006.htm

         

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