Unsolicited Commercial E-mail Research Six Month Report

[bdeli]

Originally Posted by Unreal32

Also, the new Outlook 2003 has HTML email turned OFF by default, which will hopefully help prevent some quantity of spam. Currently, savvy spammers/e-marketers put scripts in their HTML email that tells them who read their message or viewed their page, even if you only have the "preview" mode of Outlook 2000 or 2002 enabled.

Actually this is a great feature in Outlook 2003. If you have the address of a particular newsletter which you deem as secure you can add it in the Trusted sites in IE Options and when an email is received from that particulare site the HTML email will appear as it should. If not in the Trusted site - than HTML code will not display as long as you do not click on the option to show the blocked content.

[bdeli]

Originally Posted by Unreal32

Also, the new Outlook 2003 has HTML email turned OFF by default, which will hopefully help prevent some quantity of spam. Currently, savvy spammers/e-marketers put scripts in their HTML email that tells them who read their message or viewed their page, even if you only have the "preview" mode of Outlook 2000 or 2002 enabled.

Actually this is a great feature in Outlook 2003. If you have the address of a particular newsletter which you deem as secure you can add it in the Trusted sites in IE Options and when an email is received from that particulare site the HTML email will appear as it should. If not in the Trusted site - than HTML code will not display as long as you do not click on the option to show the blocked content.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Janak Parekh

Myself, I have the luxury of deploying SpamAssassin on my mail server.

The problem I always have with server-based solutions is that I worry there are some valid email messages in there and I have to go check them out...that's also the same problem I've had with applications on the client side that sit between my POP3 server and Outlook and put email into a custom "spam zone".

But I feel the pain of not having a server-based solution whenever I check email wirelessly, that's for sure...

[retlaw]

I used to get 70-100 spam messages a day. I have had the same email address for 6 1/2 years and could not change it. I have tried over 25+ products to solve the problem and the only one I am happy with is www.ipermitmail.com I have been using it for 5 months now and I have been 100% spam free the entire time.

[gtarent]

The best Spam solution I have come up with is by using a combination of the built in filters of outlook. The most powerful being a simple check to see if my email address is in the "To" or "CC:" field, if it is not it moves to a seperate folder labeled as "Suspected SPAM". Works wonderfully, but has a few downsides. First it still downloads the email before filtering, but with a broadband connection this is not an issue. It also filters a lot of subscribed list emails, but I do not use these often, so no issue.

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

The problem I always have with server-based solutions is that I worry there are some valid email messages in there and I have to go check them out...that's also the same problem I've had with applications on the client side that sit between my POP3 server and Outlook and put email into a custom "spam zone".

Actually, this is what's nice about SpamAssassin. Potential spam just gets a few extra header fields tagged onto it, and I filter by those - that's it.

But I feel the pain of not having a server-based solution whenever I check email wirelessly, that's for sure...

Yep Server-side spam and mail filtering rocks.

--janak

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by qmrq

I don't care about the fact that it is offtopic, this study has useful information for anyone who uses a computer. Just a little surprised it's being posted when it happened so long ago. :P

When WHAT happened so long ago? :lol: Spam isn't a static topic - there are always new ways to fight it, new tools, etc. Like I said, if you don't like us posting on this, please don't read it.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by bdeli

I have to say that I am really disappointed with Spamnet. First it was free - I have been using their product for the past 6 months or so. A lot of BETA users myself included, helped Spamnet get their current database of spammers - so why are they going to charge now! :evil:

<shrug> Don't they have a right to make a living off their work? :| Code doesn't write itself, and I'm sure they have big server and bandwidth bills. I've gotten to be mostly spam free for almost a year now, so that's been very cool - I'm happy to help them beta test their product.

If a service is really good and useful, why would you oppose paying for it? Conversely, if you WON'T pay for something really useful, what WILL you pay for? :wink: Serious question...

[Unreal32]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

I worry what this will do to all the great HTML newsletters I get via email...I refuse to return to the ugly world of plain text, even if it means getting spam.

You can allow certain senders to send full HTML email to you, by granting them permission in Outlook 2003. So the only time you might need to worry about this is the first time you receive an email from someone.

Although... that said, some mail I get seems to come from a different address every month (like this one annoying one I get from Palm every month or so). And for that, selectively allowing permissions wouldn't work. Although since I don't give a crap about Palm, it'd work great in my case

[bdeli]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

<shrug> Don't they have a right to make a living off their work? :| Code doesn't write itself, and I'm sure they have big server and bandwidth bills. I've gotten to be mostly spam free for almost a year now, so that's been very cool - I'm happy to help them beta test their product.

If a service is really good and useful, why would you oppose paying for it? Conversely, if you WON'T pay for something really useful, what WILL you pay for? :wink: Serious question...

Granted - but if you ever read the End user Licence Agreement it always said that spamnet was going to be free. A beta or two ago they included an option to include this piece of text in your signature - "Get your free, save spam protection at ...". In the last beta build it reads - "One month FREE spam protection at www.cloudmark.com".

[qmrq]

When the study was published. It's been a little while.

I also find this thread quite interesting, so I think I'll keep reading if you don't mind. ;P