Introduction - What is this thing? How does it work?

You have probably arrived here because you received an email generated using SpamCop. This is a free service available to all netizens. Reports from SpamCop are sent by individual users who review email manually and identify spam (Unsolicited Bulk Mail). You can try it yourself to see how it works.

SpamCop administrators do not, and cannot verify the claims made by its users. Not only are there simply far too many reports filed for anyone to manually review them, but even if we were to, there is no way for us to know whether a user actually did or did not solicit a message prior to reporting it as spam.

SpamCop currently generates two main types of spam reports. All look very similar, but you can tell the difference from the subject line:

• [SpamCop:63.11.142.206,id:246645593]Adv: Affordable Dental Care
• [SpamCop:(http://www.geocities.com/dentalcare),id:246645595]Adv: Affordable Dental Care

The first example indicates that SpamCop has tracked the source of the email to your network. This is the most serious type of report, and it is the only type that is used to track spam sources. The second shows a spammer advertising a web site using spam hosted on one of your systems. You would be very unlucky (or negligent) if you see both types of reports on the same message (as pictured above).

Please be careful when taking action. It is possible (though unlikely) that the account is what we call an "innocent bystander".

Once you have resolved an abuse report (or if the URL/web address is an innocent bystander), you may register this with SpamCop by clicking the URL in the spam report and following the appropriate option from the resulting "SpamCop ISP response page". This will save everyone's time by preventing future spam reports using SpamCop. Users will get instant notification that you are taking action against spam and you will not see further redundant reports.

If you are trying to decipher an obfuscated URL or you are not sure why SpamCop has traced you as the responsible network, you can click another link from the SpamCop ISP response page. There are several other options to explore from that page.

There is a lot more general information here. Surf the links. Check out this Wiki, the FAQs for more ISP information, or if you are interested in learning more about how SpamCop works. Current events are in the forum and/or newsgroups, and you can post your own questions/comments and someone will read them and respond.

Thanks for taking action against spam!

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SpamCopHelpForAdmins

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