I thought you might all enjoy this article written in WinXPnews (please
no Microsoft rants)...
*ISP Spam Filtering Services: Blessing or Curse?*
Over the last few weeks, several readers have written about their ISPs'
spam filtering services – usually with complaints. On more than one
occasion, we've heard that the ISP's software is preventing users from
receiving mail they want to get (including the WinXPnews), along with
the spam they don't want. In response to consumer complaints about the
deluge of spam they get, more and more ISPs are getting into the act of
installing spam filters at the server level, but some are implementing
this feature more effectively than others. The number of "false
positives" varies a lot, depending on the software that your ISP uses
and how they have it configured.
The primary complaint from our readers is that they want more control
over the filtering for their own accounts, and easier interfaces for
reviewing and deleting the suspected spam that's been caught by the
filters. Owen in California wrote that, using Earthlink's spam blocker
tool, it took 15 minutes to delete 100 messages. At that rate, I would
have to spend a couple of hours a day deleting spam.
The best filtering programs not only allow you to filter by keywords
(both in the subject line and the body of the message), but also allow
you to set both blacklists (addresses and/or domains that should always
be blocked) and whitelists (addresses and/or domains that should never
be blocked, even if the message content triggers other spam filters).
The latter is a big help in preventing messages from important people
from being "lost" due to the spam filters. Other options, such as a
choice to block all external graphics or block HTML email altogether,
are also handy.
How do you feel about ISP spam blocking? Does your provider do a good
job with this, use filtering software that drives you nuts, or just let
everything through? Do you think spam filtering should be done at the
ISP level or would you prefer to control it at the user level? Let us
know what you think, at feedback(_at_)winxpnews(_dot_)com
<mailto:feedback(_at_)winxpnews(_dot_)com>.
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