What is a Whitelist?

With all the spam and junk mail making its way into our inboxes, ISPs and software companies have come up with lists of criteria, formats and addresses commonly used by spammers that are automatically blocked.

Your "whitelist" is the list of e-mail contacts you want to receive e-mail from. Your whitelist can also be known as your approved senders list. Many times your whitelist is in the background that gets added to when you simply add folks to your address book. By adding addresses to your whitelist, approved senders list or address book, you are clearing the way for those addresses to not get blocked.

That is why it is so important when you sign up for a mailing list, newsletter or contact a site that you add their e-mail address to your whitelist, approved senders or address book. Because if you don't take this proactive action, you risk not receiving the response you are seeking.

Just so happen to have an article on the subject for your reading pleasure: E-mail Whitelist Etiquette. Enjoy!