I think about spam a lot -- I can't help it, because I get probably 300-500 spam messages a day between all of my accounts. Yet, I have one account that I had since 1998 that gets virtually zero spam, and one account that I opened last year that has literally never received a single piece of spam.
Anyway, a few days ago in between thinking about spam and thinking about what I did with my life before I discovered girls, I read the below article from the Denver Business Journal:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Study: 20% of legit e-mail blocked by spam filters
A new study from Return Path Inc. reveals Internet service providers are inadvertently blocking or filtering legitimate e-mail in their attempts to protect their subscribers from spam.
The Superior-based company's Assurance Services division tracked the delivery, blocking and filtering rates of 9,956 e-mail marketing campaigns sent by clients during the first and second quarters of 2003, using its Mailbox Monitor delivery monitoring service.
The findings revealed 17 percent of permission-based e-mail messages were incorrectly blocked or filtered by the top 12 ISPs.
Of that 17 percent that was blocked, the highest "false-positive" spam identifications were traced to Mail.com and NetZero, at 38 percent and 34 percent respectively. CompuServe followed at 31 percent and AOL logged 25 percent of the false-positives.
Yahoo had the lowest incidence of blocking and filtering at 4 percent.
"As ISPs and system administrators aggressively -- and appropriately -- try to protect their users from spam, a lot of opt-in e-mail is victimized," Matt Blumberg, Return Path CEO, said in a statement. "It's like throwing the baby out with the bath water. It is up to every company sending e-mail to make sure its campaigns are done appropriately so that they avoid triggering spam filters."
Founded in 1999, Return Path helps consumers and businesses with their e-mail performance through services like e-mail forwarding, e-mail change of address registry and e-mail marketing strategy development.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
And this leads me to wonder if the whole War on Spam has metamorphisised into some Kafka-esque parody of its former self, just another pointless and ultimately fruitless "consumer protection" racket.
Is it worth it? Spam is annoying, and it is expensive in terms of bandwidth, but can the filtering of spam really merit the sort of support that indicates that the inaccuracy with which most spam filters function be worthwhile?
I surf behind a proxy at all times, and have had mail blocked by spam filters even for individuals who have me marked as an 'allowed sender' because of the discrepancies in IP addresses (often due to an IP being on the filter's "black list.") This is exceedingly annoying, far more so than all of those offers to enlarge my penis or lose weight or get an online degree or by a stupid frickin X-Cam. Clearly the spam filter services are falling well short of the target.
After posting the above at another forum, I was sent a couple of links that I found very useful, and think you might as well.
First off, this article at FreshMeat.net about Bayesian Filtering algorithms, which also contains a very handy comparison of some of the more popular spam filters and a good number of additional reference links.
Secondly, and more intersting, is Spam Gourmet. Spam Gourmet is essentially a service that creates real but useless e-mail address that can be used for online sign-up forms and other applications, but that are set to 'self-destruct' after a preset time or message limit. It is a dream come true, because you can creat an unlimited number of new addresses and they are disposable.
Very interesing stuff, I thought. Taking steps to insulate yourself from spam is always a good thing, and perhaps it's time to look at options outside the fold of organisations such as SpamCop and CAUCE, which talk much and accomplish little.
Phaedrus
Anyway, a few days ago in between thinking about spam and thinking about what I did with my life before I discovered girls, I read the below article from the Denver Business Journal:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Study: 20% of legit e-mail blocked by spam filters
A new study from Return Path Inc. reveals Internet service providers are inadvertently blocking or filtering legitimate e-mail in their attempts to protect their subscribers from spam.
The Superior-based company's Assurance Services division tracked the delivery, blocking and filtering rates of 9,956 e-mail marketing campaigns sent by clients during the first and second quarters of 2003, using its Mailbox Monitor delivery monitoring service.
The findings revealed 17 percent of permission-based e-mail messages were incorrectly blocked or filtered by the top 12 ISPs.
Of that 17 percent that was blocked, the highest "false-positive" spam identifications were traced to Mail.com and NetZero, at 38 percent and 34 percent respectively. CompuServe followed at 31 percent and AOL logged 25 percent of the false-positives.
Yahoo had the lowest incidence of blocking and filtering at 4 percent.
"As ISPs and system administrators aggressively -- and appropriately -- try to protect their users from spam, a lot of opt-in e-mail is victimized," Matt Blumberg, Return Path CEO, said in a statement. "It's like throwing the baby out with the bath water. It is up to every company sending e-mail to make sure its campaigns are done appropriately so that they avoid triggering spam filters."
Founded in 1999, Return Path helps consumers and businesses with their e-mail performance through services like e-mail forwarding, e-mail change of address registry and e-mail marketing strategy development.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
And this leads me to wonder if the whole War on Spam has metamorphisised into some Kafka-esque parody of its former self, just another pointless and ultimately fruitless "consumer protection" racket.
Is it worth it? Spam is annoying, and it is expensive in terms of bandwidth, but can the filtering of spam really merit the sort of support that indicates that the inaccuracy with which most spam filters function be worthwhile?
I surf behind a proxy at all times, and have had mail blocked by spam filters even for individuals who have me marked as an 'allowed sender' because of the discrepancies in IP addresses (often due to an IP being on the filter's "black list.") This is exceedingly annoying, far more so than all of those offers to enlarge my penis or lose weight or get an online degree or by a stupid frickin X-Cam. Clearly the spam filter services are falling well short of the target.
After posting the above at another forum, I was sent a couple of links that I found very useful, and think you might as well.
First off, this article at FreshMeat.net about Bayesian Filtering algorithms, which also contains a very handy comparison of some of the more popular spam filters and a good number of additional reference links.
Secondly, and more intersting, is Spam Gourmet. Spam Gourmet is essentially a service that creates real but useless e-mail address that can be used for online sign-up forms and other applications, but that are set to 'self-destruct' after a preset time or message limit. It is a dream come true, because you can creat an unlimited number of new addresses and they are disposable.
Very interesing stuff, I thought. Taking steps to insulate yourself from spam is always a good thing, and perhaps it's time to look at options outside the fold of organisations such as SpamCop and CAUCE, which talk much and accomplish little.
Phaedrus
