{"id":3679,"date":"2015-10-26T14:35:20","date_gmt":"2015-10-26T14:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/2015\/10\/26\/aol-dmarc\/"},"modified":"2021-03-18T15:21:14","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T19:21:14","slug":"aol-dmarc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/email\/aol-dmarc\/","title":{"rendered":"AOL Rejecting Mail due to DMARC policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

AOL<\/strong> (America OnLine) has updated its email policy to reject mail that does not adhere to DMARC policy. This means that “Mail sent on behalf of AOL Mail users to DMARC-compliant domains will be rejected by those domains unless the mail passes SPF and\/or DKIM authentication checks AND the domain(s) used in those checks match aol.com.<\/em>” Read more in their official posts.<\/p>\n

Why did they do this?<\/h2>\n

This helps avoid a situation where someone is spoofing an email address. ‘Sender Address Forgery’, aka ‘Spoofing’, is a method of sending email out while pretending to be from a different sender. It is much like a stranger sending a letter to someone while placing your information as the return address on the envelope. This way it appears to have been sent from you and not the actual sender.<\/p>\n

What is DMARC<\/h2>\n

DMARC is short for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance<\/strong>, and is a way of verifying that messages are actually coming from the listed sender and allows abusive messages to be tracked with more ease. “DMARC<\/a> standardizes how email receivers perform email authentication using the well-known SPF and DKIM<\/strong> mechanisms<\/em>.” Read more about SPF and Domain keys<\/a> in our full guide.<\/p>\n

Who does this affect?<\/h2>\n

If you are using an AOL address to communicate with email servers using DMARC policies, your email may get rejected, or flagged as spam. This can be an issue since many email servers (such as AOL, Gmail, Yahoo, Comcast) use and contribute to DMARC.<\/p>\n

What can I do?<\/h2>\n