BODIS

MX records in question are of mailboxpark.com service. So Bodis must be their customer. As per mailboxpark faq:
"Q:How does MailboxPark generate revenue from email traffic sent to domains?
We collect the email data from the traffic sent to your domains and resell that data to companies that send email. Mailers use the data we provide to drive email insights, including detecting phishing attacks and other critical email issues.

Q: Does MailboxPark respond to email messages sent to my domains?
We DO NOT send any type of reply message to emails sent to your domains. MailboxPark is not a messaging or advertising platform."

These explanations are short. For me, it is still unclear where exactly the $$$ are in this model, who is ultimate customer - what he is paying for, and how much.

@TroyBodis and @matt_bodis - can you enlighten us please?

It has been determined by various UDRP panels that the domain registrant is responsible for everything that happens with the domain. Even it is outsourced to 3rd parties like parking companies. So, we, the registrants, need to have full and complete understanding - what happens with MX records and potential incoming email - how, why and what for.

By the way, "v=spf1 -all" TXT record does not conflict with MX records. It simply shows that domain owner elected to receive emails, but never sends outgoing emails. Which means that Bodis can safely add this TXT record to all parked domains, right now. Regardless of a desired option to optout from email monetization which was mentioned earlier in this thread.

IP addresses of A/NS/MX records and even whole domains can be blacklisted by Spamhaus.
Then registries block those domains... the most popular scenario.

I have emailed to one of my parked domains... Was sent successfully, no bounce. Also no reply.
Looks that they catch all emails and collect all data...

@Jurgen Wolf,

As far as the MX records, will have an update on that on Monday. Troy said that we don't use it to send or reply to emails, and that is true. Will have a formal update on that on Monday.

As far as the spam IP, that is very interesting. Let's look into this. Will reach out to SpamHaus.

Likely Afilias uses Spamhaus database, as well as other networks.

It's usually as a result of those malware ads on parked domains, which we're always policing. But as soon as a single ad reaches an end user, these networks typically pick up on it. Few questions:

-Do you have "high quality ads" only enabled on your domains?
-Can you please message me the domain name that this occured on?

This domain is in my primary Bodis account where ZeroClick is completely DISABLED.

I had the same serverHold issues @ParkingCrew where ZeroClick and Email monetization were also disabled entirely.
And those Afilias domains were NOT listed in Spamhaus DBL.
But at least one of PC IP addresses (from my own research) is listed in Spamhaus SBL.

And overall, individual user settings don't matter at all here...
Because the parking platform IPs are SHARED among a lot of users...

matt_bodis said:

As far as the MX records, will have an update on that on Monday. Troy said that we don't use it to send or reply to emails, and that is true. Will have a formal update on that on Monday.

Click to expand...

@matt_bodis Are there any updates?

Jurgen Wolf said:

Few hours ago this domain was blocked by Afilias (serverHold was set).
So now I'm trying to unblock it via Namecheap Abuse team...
serverHold removal usually takes ~1 week (from my previous experience).

Click to expand...

Was unblocked today.
Spent almost 5 days.

Check any parked domain...

https://dnsflagday.net/2019/#domain-holders
https://dnsflagday.net/2020/#action-authoritative-dns-operators

Still minor problems with your nameservers in both cases...

I recommend to disable "Email verification" in your Bodis sales settings...
Bodis uses Amazon to send emails - and IPs of Amazon SMTP are listed in http://www.sorbs.net/lookup.shtml

SORBS is actively used by various email providers.
For example, Hotmail/Outlook blocks all emails from IPs listed in SORBS. They will be not delivered even into Spam folder.

Jurgen Wolf said:

And 2nd detected BUG: it is impossible to reset/remove the Master keyword.
When I save this field as empty - the previous keyword remains even after few days, nothing happens - in other words.

Click to expand...

Removal/clearance of the custom keyword(s) still doesn't work at all.

@Jurgen Wolf

Sorry for the late reply. We've been putting out fires daily. Almost a normal thing when it comes to domain parking these days.

Let me first answer the MX thing. Right now, we don't offer a way to disable MX due to how our DNS is configured. However, we have briefly reviewed the configuration and can see a way to make this an option in the near future. By near future, we're thinking EOY / early next.

As of right now, all Bodis revenue is simply higher due to MX monetization. That means we're able to pay a more competitive revenue share. If we make more, you make more. Even if we had a way to individually disable MX records, at this time it wouldn't make sense unless we paid you less revenue as a result.

Basically we have a base line (and it's actually quite thin) on how much we take across the board. We maintain that baseline based on all incoming revenues (parking ads, MX record monetization, and so forth). If we disabled MX records currently from your domains, and continued to pay the same, it wouldn't make much logical sense.

Our plan right now is this - offer MX revenue stream as a seperate reporting feature or some sort of reporting functionality (even if it's on a very limited basis) within the Bodis UI. We have a lot of plans and hopefully can get there quite soon. Especially as of lately as we've grown our development team and continue to do so. Once we offer it as a seperate functionality, we'll be changing the baseline revenue on your standard parking revenue and then offering the revenue seperately as part of the MX reported revenue. THEN you will be able to disable the MX feature. Upon disabling, you'll not earn revenues for MX monetization.

So long story short, currently, it is bundled into your entire revenue. We also don't have a way to disable this on a per-user basis currently as it's a wild card setup within our DNS. We'll be able to offer that, and then when we do, revenue for MX will be split up, and then you'll also be able to turn it on/off. Our goal is transparency, and this will help us get closer to that.

Will address the other issues in an upcoming reply.

Jurgen Wolf said:

Check any parked domain...

https://dnsflagday.net/2019/#domain-holders
https://dnsflagday.net/2020/#action-authoritative-dns-operators

Still minor problems with your nameservers in both cases...

Click to expand...

We'll look into it, thanks.

Jurgen Wolf said:

Removal/clearance of the custom keyword(s) still doesn't work at all.

Click to expand...

Odd, we'll get on top of this issue asap, thanks!

Jurgen Wolf said:

I recommend to disable "Email verification" in your Bodis sales settings...
Bodis uses Amazon to send emails - and IPs of Amazon SMTP are listed in http://www.sorbs.net/lookup.shtml

SORBS is actively used by various email providers.
For example, Hotmail/Outlook blocks all emails from IPs listed in SORBS. They will be not delivered even into Spam folder.

Click to expand...

Interesting, thanks. We'll either have to use our IPs for mail or the Google Suite, which limits on the # of emails we can send.

Jurgen Wolf said:

I had the same serverHold issues @ParkingCrew where ZeroClick and Email monetization were also disabled entirely.
And those Afilias domains were NOT listed in Spamhaus DBL.
But at least one of PC IP addresses (from my own research) is listed in Spamhaus SBL.

Click to expand...

I wonder what the issue may be here then? I do know for a fact that hosting over 1 million active domains on a single IP does not help the case. Because a domain with bad prior history that is suddenly moved to a different IP can get that new IP flagged as well. We've seen it happen before.

If you have any ideas please let us know!

Bad history???
Those domains were just PARKED in the past (the same as nowadays)... and traffic is ~0 there.

Regarding MX...
I don't want this kind of monetization at all.
Few years ago I lost 1 .me domain @ParkingCrew exactly due to Email monetization (when it was enabled in my account).
It was suspended by Registry (Afilias) and my request to unblock it - was rejected.

Regarding RPM...
My average RPM at Bodis is ~2 times lower VS ParkingCrew (where MX monetization is not used).

I don't compare ZeroClick RPMs.
Talking only about Tier1 accounts.

Jurgen Wolf said:

Regarding MX...
I don't want this kind of monetization at all.
Few years ago I lost 1 domain .me @ParkingCrew exactly due to Email monetization (when it was enabled in my account).
It was suspended by registry and my request to unblock it - was rejected.

Click to expand...

Sorry for my intrusion here but I have been seeing a LOT of traffic to my names at Bodis that look like below. Is this what you are also referring to?

mx.<domainnamehere.ext>

the number of "mx." varies from 1 to even as much as 6 times in the front of the domain name lately like below:

mx.mx.mx.mx.mx.mx.<domainnamehere.ext>

some traffic is showing up as

mail.<domainnamehere.ext>

A new one I havent seen until today is:

_dmarc.mx.mx.mx.mx.mx.<domainnamehere.ext>

And the traffic is mostly from China Mobile Communications Corporation

I think that this mx. stuff before the domain name started showing up around June 2019 so about 3 months.

Jurgen Wolf said:

Regarding MX...
I don't want this kind of monetization at all.
Few years ago I lost 1 .me domain @ParkingCrew exactly due to Email monetization (when it was enabled in my account).
It was suspended by Registry (Afilias) and my request to unblock it - was rejected.

Click to expand...

Currently, you can get around it by using CNAME or IP address forwarding for your domains.

We will certainly offer the option in the near future. Thanks for all the suggestions. We're also looking into the other issues you've raised.

@AGAME

I'm talking about MX records at root domain (@).
This is slightly another theme... and it is related to Email traffic/monetization.

Regarding your case...
It is about the so-called catch-all...
In other words - ANY SUBdomain WEBtraffic is monetized as well, like MX. or MAIL. in your example.

matt_bodis said:

Currently, you can get around it by using CNAME or IP address forwarding for your domains.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, this parking method is not friendly when you deal with medium or large portfolio and with many registrars.

One more suggestion regarding the color/background of the for sale text banner...
It is currently available in Blue and Orange... Please add Gray/Grey variant.

Jurgen Wolf said:

@AGAME

I'm talking about MX records at root domain (@).
This is slightly another theme... and it is related to Email traffic/monetization.

Regarding your case...
It is about the so-called catch-all...
In other words - ANY SUBdomain WEBtraffic is monetized as well, like MX. or MAIL. in your example.

Click to expand...

Is this also something to be concerned about, as is what you were describing about your email monetization concern?