An email has been bounced back to me with the error "550-5.7.1 Unauthenticated email from yahoo.com is not accepted due to domains 550-5.7.1 DMARC policy ". What can I do about it?
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) is a domain's authentication policy that tells receiving mail servers how to deal with an email failing to pass SPF or DKIM authentication. Based on the FROM domain's policy, the receiving server will either accept or reject the email.
DMARC policies are aimed to prevent non-legitimate emails, including phishing and spoofing. However, strong DMARC policies can sometimes misidentify legitimate emails as fraudulent when delivered via a third party. In this article, you will learn how DMARC may affect the delivery of your emails if you use a free email provider and what you can do to fix it.
DMARC and Free Email Providers
Some free email providers, like Yahoo and AOL, have implemented strong DMARC policies to prevent spam and spoofing. If you register for eEvidence with a Yahoo email address, Yahoo's DMARC policy will tell receiving servers that comply with DMARC that the email that we send on your behalf should be rejected because it wasn't sent through a Yahoo server.
There's no technical workaround to bypass a DMARC restriction when using an email address from a free provider. If the receiving server is rejecting your email because of a DMARC policy, it will continue to do so no matter what you try.
What can I do?
The simplest and quickest solution is to switch from Yahoo to another free email provider, but bear in mind that sooner or later all major email providers will likely implement DMARC. If you are using a free email provider DMARC may not be causing you any issues now, but the odds are it will.
To avoid the risk, we encourage you to switch your free email domain to a domain owned by you or your organization. This looks more professional and helps guarantee your emails delivery.