Multi-threading added to core sending process

The JangoMail engine processes mass e-mails in two steps. In the first step, a mass e-mail is pre-processed, where it is determined who the actual recipients are. The original recipient list is filtered for unsubscribes, bounces, duplicates, invalid e-mail addresses, and other measures. In the second step, JangoMail's network of distributed senders around the country actually send the indvidual e-mail messages.

It is the first pre-processing step that is now multi-threaded. Previously, this step operated in a linear fashion, pre-processing one mass e-mail job at a time. Occasionally, this would cause a delay in sending e-mails, when say, a customer sent out one mass e-mail to 2,000,000 recipients. All mass e-mail jobs submitted after the big job would have to wait while the big 2,000,000 recipient job was pre-processed. This wait has now been eliminated, because our new code can pre-process multiple mass e-mail jobs at a time.

This will result in greater overall e-mail sending speed across the entire JangoMail application!

Updated challenge-response filters

We have updated our incoming e-mail filter to categorize two more types of challenge-response e-mails:

1. Spam Sleuth challenge-responses
2. PeoplePC Spaminator challenge-responses

Previously, these types of challenges were being classified as User Reply e-mails. Now they will be appropriately classified as challenge-response e-mails.

How the spam blocker works

You may be wondering how JangoMail determines whether a response to a mass e-mailing is a valid reply or spam. The method JangoMail uses to decide is quite simple. Any response that doesn't fit into other categories, such as unsubscribes, bounces, out of office, etc., must be either spam or a valid reply from your recipient. The e-mail is assumed to be spam unless at least one of the following criteria are met, in which case the e-mail is a valid reply:

1. The Subject line of the e-mail is similar to the Subject line of a previously sent mass e-mail from your JangoMail account.

2. The From E-mail Address of the e-mail matches an address to which you've recently sent a mass e-mail.

3. The Body of the e-mail contains a special header that JangoMail includes on all outbound mass e-mails. This would indicate that the recipient replied to the e-mail, and left your original mass e-mail, with headers, at the bottom.

New Features: Spam blocker and better reply management

One of the complaints we frequently get from our higher volume and longer term customers is that they are frustrated with the amount of spam they receive at the address they use as their From Address in their mass e-mailings.

Why does this happen?

After a particular From Address has been used on large mass e-mailings, over time, the From Address becomes overexposed. Your From Address is obviously exposed to your recipients, and if your recipients have e-mail related viruses or spyware on their computers, your From Address can also be exposed to hackers and spammers.

We now have a spam blocker in place to combat this problem!

Our new spam blocker will filter out replies that are actually spam. Additionally:

1. You can decide whether or not they want to use the spam blocker.

2. If using the spam blocker, you can decide to have the e-mails classified as spam forwarded onto an e-mail address of your choice, or just sit in Reporting for viewing.

3. You can now decide what to prepend the subject line with in the cases of replies, challenge-responses, and spam messages. In the past, replies were always prepended with "USER REPLY: " and challenge response e-mails were always prepended with "CHALLENGE-RESPONSE: ". Now you can modify this text and add a prepend for spam e-mails as well, if you choose to have spam received by JangoMail sent to an e-mail address.

4. There is a new "Spam" category under Reporting --> Incoming Messages so that you can view spam that has been received by your account.

The default spam settings for all existing accounts and all new accounts are:

Spam blocker is on.
Spam is NOT e-mailed to any address.

All of these settings are under My Options --> Forward Replies To.

If in using our spam blocker feature, you notice false positives (e-mails being classified as spam that are legitimate replies), then please let us know so we can modify our spam-detection algorithm. You can let us know via https://www.jangomail.com/Support/.

Scrub reports will now contain an attachment

Details of a particular scrub report will no longer be contained within the body of the e-mail message. Rather, the particular details of the scrub report will now be in an attached text file to the e-mail message.