CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#asp.netsecurity
Simon at LabSlice-com
Simon at LabSlice-com

Reputation: 3027

Identify if an email address is 'public'

I would like to identify if an email address comes from a public provider or is from an established business. I consider public email addresses to be things such as:

I'm aware that there is no foolproof way to do this, and obviously any list based solution would require constant updates.

Is there a public listing or .NET library that can do this for me?

Upvotes: 11

Views: 5482

Answers (5)

itoctopus
itoctopus

Reputation: 4261

I am guessing the ultimate goal is to clean your database from unwanted contacts that will increase the monthly bill. What you can do is the following:

  • Create a webhook that is triggered whenever a new contact is added.
  • In that webhook (which can be written in any language), check if the contact is in a blacklist (which is gmail/etc...).
  • Remove the contact if it is in a blacklist using an API call (you will need to first get the contact ID, which can be easily retrieved using API).

Upvotes: 0

Ula
Ula

Reputation: 2748

Consider using HubSpot blocked domains list. It is not a guarantee that it is 100% accurate or complete.

They also provide a CSV file that you can download and parse programmatically. Link to CSV file is in the linked page.

Upvotes: 0

VladV
VladV

Reputation: 10369

Here is a link to SpamAssasin's freemail list: http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin/trunk/rules/20_freemail_domains.cf.
I suppose, checking against this list is a good start.

Upvotes: 5

mike
mike

Reputation: 3166

Are there really that many free webmail providers out there? I would go with a 'blacklisting' style solution.

For example, flag everything in this wikipedia list as free (heck I would think covering gmail/hotmail/yahoo/aol would cover a huge % of users anyway). Then if you get more than 2 (or higher number if your site has high throughput) registrations from the same email domain, it notifies the admin to check the domain to see if it needs to be added to the 'blacklist'.

I would imagine there are much more reliable ways to detect business customers though. For example in Australia you could just ask for an ABN and then check that it's valid. Are you willing to punish small business who don't have email providing and just use a generic @gmail account?

Upvotes: 4

Moo-Juice
Moo-Juice

Reputation: 38820

You might want to talk to the Better-Business-Bureau ( http://www.bbb.org ) and see if they provide some kind of a feed or API. I had a quick look at their site and couldn't see anything obvious, but it would be this kind of organisation I would head to first if I wanted to find out domain names belonging to established businesses. They do have a form on their site to search by email address ( http://www.bbb.org/us/Find-Business-Reviews/ )

Upvotes: 0

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