What Is A Whitelist?

A whitelist is the exact opposite of a blacklist. A whitelist is a predefined list of IP addresses that are allowed to send email to and receive email from each other. In the same way that blacklists exclude known and suspected spammers whitelists can be used to exclude everyone except verified IP addresses. To send email to a whitelist you must be approved and verified by the owner of the whitelist. This is not unlike the double optin systems in use by legimiate ezines and mailing lists owners. Whitelists are the nightclub bouncers of the online world - if you ain't on the list you ain't getting in.

An example of a whitelist would be if two companies wanted to exchange email only with each other and not receive email from anyone else. They could implement a white list that contained the IP address for just their two mail servers. That would mean that any email coming from an IP not on their shared whitelist would be returned to the sender. This reduces server clutter dramatically and reduces bandwidth usage considerably.

The potential for whitelists is huge as long as they're managed properly. Misuse of whitelists will only lead to more headaches (missed email, irate customers/staff, IT overtime) than the original spam problem gave in the first place.

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