Unexpected Blacklisting

Question: I have been using Maxbulk Mailer for many years (though not that often) and installed MLM many years ago as well. I have just gone to send a mailer and imported the subscriber list as a text file exported from my commerce system (as I always do), and the first 9,000 or so imported came up crossed through. I then discovered that these are in the global blacklist. Even if I create a new document, these 9,000 contacts are already in the blacklist.

I have never knowingly added anyone to the blacklist as I have never even looked at that functionality before.
I logged into MLM on my web site and I can see no blacklist there. I don't use the [unsubscribe] tag in my mail shots (cannot say for certain if I ever have) as we have our own unsubscribe function on our web site and import the customers ID with each contact to allow this functionality.

I have never seen imported contacts disabled like this before. I had just updated to the latest version so maybe this is why things are different. I have been scouring your support pages but cannot fid the answers I need.

Please can you explain where this blacklist is being propagated from? By what mechanism has this blacklist been constructed i.e. how have recipients indicated they don't want to be subscribed? Why is this only happening now? If I wish to just rely on our own subscription system on our web store, should I just select everyone in the global blacklist and choose remove all?

Answer: The blacklist its explained here: Using MaxBulk Mailer Global Blacklist.

You may have blacklisted a list or a set of recipients in error. To remove an address from the Blacklist you just have to go to the Blacklist, select the address(es), click on the delete button '-' and then on the 'Save' button (as with unsubscribed addresses, blacklisted recipients are automatically discarded by MaxBulk Mailer when sending messages). If you add an address that is currently Blacklisted, it will automatically appear in red with its specific icon so you find out instantly about its status.

What's the Blacklist about? Well, as you know MaxBulk Mailer already lets you unsubscribe people from a list. But what happens if a recipient is subscribed to more than one list and he explicitly asked not to receive anything else from you? You have the choice between processing each list separately and unsubscribe the recipient from each of them or use the Blacklist. In fact, the Blacklist prevents you from sending messages to given addresses whichever the list you have selected. In other words, you just need to add the address once to the blacklist to get it automatically blacklisted everywhere else. The Blacklist is accessible from the List manager pull-down menu like a regular list. Just select it, add email addresses to it as usual and click on the 'Save' button. That's all! Blacklisted addresses appear in red with a different icon so you can easily tell them apart. You can also add one or more addresses to the Blacklist by selecting them and using the 'Add to Blacklist' menu from both the list contextual menu (right-clicking on the list) and from the 'Recipients' main menu.

I have created this short video about how to use the MaxBulk Mailer global blacklist: