SPF Records are shorthand for the Sender Policy Framework (more information here standard which is being implemented by a number of hosting companies on the Internet.

This standard is currently in an "experimental" stage, but many ISPs (including Tech Superpowers) are evaluating the use of it to reduce spam and, in particular, the effects of spoofing.

SPF records will not reduce the spam that you get. In fact, it has little to do with the emails that you receive, but is largely concerned with emails that you send out.

The use of SPF records enables servers all over the Internet to verify that you're actually supposed to be sending emails using your email address.

When you send out an email, if your domain has an SPF Record (which we would establish for a Tech Superpowers Hosting customer), that record would get checked by the server that you're sending your email to. It would use that record to verify that you are not only sending the email from a valid domain, but it would also verify that you are sending it from a server that you should be sending it from.

The receiving server will reject it if the email didn't match the information in your SPF record, which means that if a spammer used your email to send emails out to the world (as they do when they spoof email addresses), your email would be marked as not legitimate and would be rejected. If enough ISPs use SPF records, then it could significantly reduce the amount of spam being sent using other people's email addresses.

While SPF records could be useful in ultimately reducing spam and the effects of spoofing, there are a number of limitations of SPF records:

• Its effectiveness depends on both sides of the email transaction supporting SPF. If one side or the other does not support SPF, then the email will be let through. So implementing SPF may not be very effective initially, until more ISPs support it.
• Sending emails from any server other than our server may result in your email getting rejected. This could include emails sent from Blackberries, home Internet connections, hotels, public wireless networks, and even when visiting other companies.
• Email forwarding can sometimes be thrown off by SPF, resulting in rejections of legitimate email.

If you're interested in implementing SPF records on your Tech Superpowers hosting (or in switching to Tech Superpowers so that you can get this feature), please contact us at hosting@techsuperpowers.com.

Please Note: This feature is currently under beta testing, so the results of implementation are still unpredictable. In fact, if you send emails frequently while travelling, we currently do not recommend implementing this feature on your hosting account.