Email policy

To protect users and the WEB.DE systems, WEB.DE reserves the right to temporarily or permanently refuse to accept emails if at least one of the following conditions is not fulfilled:

  • The email sender must respect the legal requirements of their own country, as long as they do not contradict the provisions stated here. For senders from the USA, this primarily refers to observing the provisions of the Can-Spam Act.
  • The sender must comply with the standards defined in RFC 5321 and RFC5322.
  • The technical information used in the email (email header) and the sender details must not be spoofed. The recipient must be able to identify the actual sender of the email.
  • The delivering email server must have a static IP address. Additionally, it has to be configured correctly and needs to provide a valid HELO, as well as MX, A, and PTR resource records (reverse DNS entry). The PTR-RR in particular must not correspond to the preset generic record of the host.
  • In addition to this, the operator is obliged to check the server at regular intervals to avoid unauthorised access.
  • The receipt of emails with malicious, immoral, or illegal content will be refused. This applies in particular to emails infected by viruses or trojans, or mails that refer to virus or trojan infected sites. Emails with seditious content, or that provoke illegal acts, or glorify violence, or emails that refer to sites that do this will be rejected instead of Emails with seditious content, or that provoke illegal acts, or glorify violence, or emails that refer to sites that do this.
  • Mass mailing or sending of emails with commercial content is restricted to users who have explicitly given their consent. The recipient must be given an easy option of protesting against the transmission of emails of this kind.
  • Mass mails or emails with commercial content must contain a valid legal section. This includes valid, non-electronic contact information such as the complete postal address and the telephone number.
  • The sender must ensure that addresses belonging to users who no longer exist are not used.

WEB.DE reserves the right to use external lists, such as IP lists (DNSBL lists) or hash lists to sort and reject emails.

In addition to this, WEB.DE reserves the right to seek legal action against users who infringe on this email policy, or to temporarily or permanently block email reception for such users.

Glossary

  1. The email header contains technical information on the process of sending an email. Most email programs and webmail interfaces hide the email header. In contrast to this, the email body (the text itself) is typically displaced. The body can be pure text or comprise multiple elements such as text and attachments.
  2. The HELO command is part of the SMTP protocol used for email delivery. With the help of this command, the email exchange between two servers gets initiated as the sending server transmits its full domain name. Analogous to that, a server indicates by means of the EHLO command that the extended SMTP protocol version (ESMTP) should be used.
  3. A Reverse DNS entry or FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name or PTR-RR) is the unique name of an internet host. The FQDN can be used to discover the host's IP address. The Reverse DNS entry should be used as the HELO when sending emails.