The DBL (Domain Block List) is a list of domains found in spam messages, both in the body and the from/to addresses, as well as phishing, fraud/"419" or domains sending or hosting malware/viruses. A database query provides will eventually (this isn't working yet) specify if the blocked domain is a spam, phish or malware domain.
Mail servers and other spam filters can then examine e-mails and block them if they wish. A blog server could also use it to filter blog spam. Spamhaus doesn't check the destination of shortened URLs like tinyurl, so it can't filter them. The onus for this is on the shortening services.
Obviously legitimate URLs can be found in spam messages, for instance if the message is falsely sent from a gmail.com address or if the spam links to an address on a legitimate site. Spamhaus says that the list is managed as a "zero false-positive" list, but they aren't specific about the checks they perform.
As with their other services, Spamhaus sells access to the list either on a per-entry query basis or as an Rsync service to synchronize the whole database.
News 1 year ago
