IP Reputation, the Whitelist, and Inbox Delivery at AOL

In this article, Christine, Manager of AOL's Postmaster Team explains how AOL calculates IP reputation and what they do with it. Here are some clippings:

clipped from journals.aol.com Each IP that delivers mail to AOL has a reputation -- roughly good, bad, or somewhere in between. Your reputation is a holistic view of your IP and takes into account a wide variety of factors including -- but not limited to -- spam complaints, not spam reports, spam folder deliveries, and invalid recipients. IPs with a good reputation will benefit from better inbox delivery than IPs with a bad reputation. Moreover, IPs with a bad reputation will be subject to more temp deferrals, temp blocks, and permanent IP blocks. The trick to a good IP reputation is to send mail to people who want it. The standard AOL whitelist offers protection from certain spam filters. Being on the whitelist is in no way a guarantee of inbox delivery, and IPs on the whitelist can still be spam foldered, temp deferred, temp blocked, or permanently blocked if they have a bad reputation. If your mail is being temp deferred, temp blocked, or your IP has been permanently blocked, you may not be on the whitelist.