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Yahoo! and anti-spam firm Cloudmark have signed on to begin using Return Path’s Sender Score Certification whitelisting program as one of the gauges they use to determine if incoming e-mail is spam.

Cloudmark is already checking incoming e-mail for Sender Score Certification. Yahoo! is implementing the scheme and will begin checking using it sometime in spring.

For Return Path and its clients, the development means the number of e-mail boxes in which its Sender Score Certification program plays a role in deliverability has risen from 800 million to about 1.2 billion, according to the company.

The Yahoo! deal significantly increases the role Return Path’s whitelisting e-mail deliverability program plays in getting e-mail delivered to consumer addresses.

AOL is now the only major U.S. Internet service provider not using Sender Score Certification to check incoming e-mail. AOL uses Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail program where marketers pay a small fee to have their messages guaranteed to be delivered to AOL users with images and links intact.

The Cloudmark deal significantly increased Return Path’s influence over deliverability to business addresses and inboxes controlled by Earthlink, Comcast, Cox and Charter in the U.S., and Telus, THUS and Fastweb in Europe.

While being Sender Score Certified—a designation Return Path gives to non-spamming companies—is no guarantee an e-mailer’s messages will get delivered, the scheme is a significant factor in determining how incoming mail will be processed by the ISPs who use it, said Matt Blumberg, chief executive of Return Path.

“Being Sender Score Certified is not an ironclad guarantee of deliverability, or images and links [rendering] at most of the 1.2 billion mailboxes we cover,” said Blumberg. “But it is a very, very heavy influencer of all of those things. Anyone who is in the program has experienced significant lift.”