Our SPAM Blocker
Irresponsible advertisers have discovered that the cost of sending email is very low. They can send out millions of advertisements at such a low cost that if only one person in many millions purchases the product or service advertised, the ads are cost justified. Unfortunately, it doesn't really even matter if the cost of the ads is justified as there is a never-ending supply of stupid, greedy, and obnoxious people who will attempt to market a product or service in this way whether it is cost effective or not.
In the industry such messages are known as UCE for Unsolicited Commercial Email or as SPAM. People who send it out are called SPAMmers. They are the pariahs of the Internet. All reputable ISPs have an anti-spam policy and disconnect the accounts of SPAMmers as they are discovered. Unfortunately, by the time this happens they have already sent out many millions of emails and it is all too easy for them to find a new home.
Everyone wants an effective way to avoid SPAM. It is not an easy problem. SPAMmers know people do not want to receive their messages and go to great lengths to get them through. Naturally every SPAM message receives millions of angry replies. SPAMmers are also fully aware of how obnoxious their practice is and avoid getting replies to their emails. The reply address of most SPAM is either invalid or is the forged address of a hapless bystander.
The most important thing you can do to avoid SPAM is avoid giving out your email address to un-trusted parties. Every time you or someone else enters your email address into a blank on a form, you run the risk of giving your email address to a SPAMmer. If you send free web greeting cards or sign up for free mailing lists, you are just asking for it.
People often complain that their ISP has sold their mailing list. This is rarely the case. No reputable ISP sells the contact information of its customers. However, SPAMmers will pay good money for large mailing lists and so there are exceptions. Indeed, "free" ISPs have been funded by this source alone. Free email sites such as Hotmail operate solely on money received from advertisers. So you have to ask if "free" is really worth the price.
Our SPAM Blocker |
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In general, we find that serious business users love the SPAM blocker but consumers are not as successful with it. Consumers have trouble maintaining their allowed and blocked lists and are more likely to subscribe to mailing lists or want to receive unsolicited mail.
If the sender is not on the list, the server temporarily stores the message and sends out an automatic reply inviting the sender to register himself. The invitation looks like this:
From: A Subscriber<myemail@myisp.com> To: A Friend<myfriend@hisisp.com> Subject: Your email to myemail@myisp.com If you don't want to read all this: JUST CLICK "REPLY" AND THEN "SEND" Your email with subject This is the subject of my email has been blocked because your email address myfriend@hisisp.com is not recognized as a regular correspondent. The email system has saved a copy of your message and will deliver it to me once you are registered as a correspondent. To be automatically registered, simply reply to this message, leaving the subject line intact. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I'm sure you appreciate the need to do something about SPAM |
The system works because SPAMmers cannot respond to, or even effectively process, the millions and millions of angry replies they receive to their messages. Your legitimate correspondent, however, can reply to the invitation.
When the system receives his reply, the SPAM blocker adds his email address to your known correspondents list and his original email is delivered to your mailbox. Future email from the same person gets passed through without delay.
The Control Panel also lets you make a list of senders that you do NOT want to receive email from. If an addresses is on the blocked list, email from it is silently discarded. No invitation is sent in reply.
Using the Control Panel, not only individual addresses but entire domains may be included in the Allowed and Blocked lists.
Finally, the Control Panel lets you review the blocked messages stored on the server. You might use this feature if you expected an email that has never arrived and you need it delivered or need to add the sender to your allowed list.
This is best addressed by reviewing the saved messages list in the Control Panel shortly after you sign up for a mailing list. Find an email from the list and add that sender to your Allowed list.
Another problem with the SPAM blocker is that SPAMmers may forge their reply address as someone you would legitimately correspond with or even as your own email address. In these cases, unwanted emails may be passed by the SPAM blocker. This is rare, currently, but likely to become an increasing problem. In actual practice, the main complaint people have about the SPAM blocker is that it blocks email they did want to receive.
A third problem with the SPAM blocker is that many correspondents do not seem to be able to understand the automated invitation. We have revised the wording of it several times but there are still an alarming number of people who just can't seem to figure it out. So be aware that using the SPAM blocker may result in failure to receive email messages because correspondents don't understand that they need to answer the automatic invitation.
If you suspect a correspondent is sending you email that you never receive, visit the Saved Messages list in the Control Panel and see if they are listed. If so, you may add the sender to your Allowed List.
We are continuing to develop the SPAM blocker as we learn more about people's needs and patterns of use of email. In the meantime, it is a very powerful tool for stopping SPAM but it is not appropriate for every subscriber.