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Internet Business killer of 2013


ecotao

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I run a business 100% internet based and all my business is generated by my website. I coordinate 3 different email addresses for receiving business. My biggest loss to my business is not spam. It is not viruses. It is not trojans or hackers. It is not search engine listing. The biggest threat to my business survival is Spamcop! :excl:

And apparently, I am not the only one. On complaining to my internet host they said:

"Honestly, we've been getting a bunch of email problems from spamcop over the last couple months. It's a big thing with yahoo and others as well."

Where is the problem? If my legitimate email quotation to a customer is blocked, or a supplier email quote is blocked or a potential customer email is not delivered, I am losing business and money. And this is what spamcop is doing. Legitimate emails are being blocked by Spamcop. This is the equivalent of a traffic officer pulling drivers off the road who obey all the rules. It is the same as a policeman standing outside my shop and stopping customers from entering. It is the same as the security guard at the bank preventing me from entering the bank. All for no reason that I have caused or have control over.

I would rather have the spam and get rid of Spamcop, as spamcop is affecting my business on a percentage level.

So called "false positives" or whatever the terminology are not acceptable. The current bout has lasted 5 days and is not yet over. In terms of lost sales, the potential big order that Spamcop blocks due to stopping a legitimate email can amount to US$10000 in my case. And with the nature of my business, it is that single sale from that single email that helps me survive to the next month!

So Spamcop. You are killing my business and nobody seems to know how to fix this.

This makes Spamcop the BIGGEST problem for 2013 for my business survival.

Ecotao Enterprises cc

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It's not Spamcop that's blocking your email, that's not how they work.

It's far more likely that your business contacts' email providers check for a listing in Spamcop's database, and have discovered that your email provider's system is listed. If this is the case, you need to get on the case of your email provider for allowing spammers to misuse their services. You are paying your email provider good money to provide a service to you, and you are not getting the service that you are paying for.

A properly formatted non-delivery report where an email is rejected based on a Spamcop listing will have a link to a page on Spamcop's website where there will be an explanation of why there is a listing, and give you some pointers on what you can do about it.

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I run a business 100% internet based and all my business is generated by my website. I coordinate 3 different email addresses for receiving business. My biggest loss to my business is not spam. It is not viruses. It is not trojans or hackers. It is not search engine listing. The biggest threat to my business survival is Spamcop! :excl:

Ecotao Enterprises cc

If you wish for solution please give a SMTP IP address

If SpamCop Block List (SCBL) is continually listing your posting IP you perhaps have security or marketing problems

Doubt if SpamCop would be the only Block list you are on

Check your IP here

http://multirbl.valli.org/

This will tell you simply how many have your IP blocked

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Thanks. I went to http://multirbl.valli.org and rand the test on 209.217.42.23

An amazing 232!. And Blacklisted: 2. One of these said "Don't worry. No one is using this block list to filter email. They do not accept solicitations for removal, so just ignore them."

The other: Spamcop blocking list. Nobody but Spamcop.

OK email is hitting Spamtraps

http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=checkblo...p=209.217.42.23

"Other hosts in this "neighborhood" with spam reports"

209.217.42.13 209.217.42.14 209.217.42.15 209.217.42.21 209.217.42.22

All have had identicle pharm spam reported

spamtraps are secret and are not readily guessable pin number on bank is easier?

You selling "pharmaceutical"?

A reported spam has subject

Living with ED? Obtain generic tabs from Web shop!

Looks like pharm spam to me?

If this is not you you may be using a shared IP

Senderscore gives this IP a low rating Should be 90+)?

https://www.senderscore.org/lookup.php?look...mp;ipLookup.y=6

The websites linked through

https://bitly.com/

Abd are taken down

http://bitly.com/a/warning?url=http%3a%2f%...mp;hash=13sQNPH

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Hi: I do not sell Pharmaceuticals, but various equipment from my website.

The whole mechanism is inherently wrong. You are effectively saying, "You have a thief living somewhere in your region - we saw him run there - so we are labeling you all as criminals. Even though you are law-abiding, you are to be denied your rights because someone near to is doing something wrong. We do not have a clue who it is, so we will brand the whole area as criminal".

It should not be my responsibility to try and fix this - and I cannot fix this.

My IP says"We've been having some problems with them (Spamcop) adding our servers lately. Unfortunately, there's not much we can do save for submitting false positives and hoping they get on it faster then usual."

So the IP says it is Spamcop and Spamcop says it is the IP.

Spamcop needs to get better at there supposed service. I may be one voice in a billion in the internet world, but the consequences for me are real. I cannot conduct my business and so feed my family if spamcop is blocking my legitimate emails.

OK email is hitting Spamtraps

http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=checkblo...p=209.217.42.23

"Other hosts in this "neighborhood" with spam reports"

209.217.42.13 209.217.42.14 209.217.42.15 209.217.42.21 209.217.42.22

All have had identicle pharm spam reported

spamtraps are secret and are not readily guessable pin number on bank is easier?

You selling "pharmaceutical"?

A reported spam has subject

Living with ED? Obtain generic tabs from Web shop!

Looks like pharm spam to me?

If this is not you you may be using a shared IP

Senderscore gives this IP a low rating Should be 90+)?

https://www.senderscore.org/lookup.php?look...mp;ipLookup.y=6

The websites linked through

https://bitly.com/

Abd are taken down

http://bitly.com/a/warning?url=http%3a%2f%...mp;hash=13sQNPH

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...

My IP says"We've been having some problems with them (Spamcop) adding our servers lately. Unfortunately, there's not much we can do save for submitting false positives and hoping they get on it faster then usual." ...

Sounds like they are not in possession of the facts. From what you have posted it seems like your outgoing mail server would be mail.webhero.com which resolves through the name servers to:

wh-qmail03.webhero.com 209.217.42.13

wh-qmail04.webhero.com 209.217.42.14

wh-qmail05.webhero.com 209.217.42.15

wh-qmailb01.webhero.com 209.217.42.21

wh-qmailb02.webhero.com 209.217.42.22

wh-qmailb03.webhero.com 209.217.42.23

SpamCop would be sending very complete evidence of spam from any of those servers reported by humans (remembering, no reports from spamtrap hits) to abuse addresses abuse[at]catalog.com, abuse[at]dallas.net and postmaster[at]catalog.com. If your provider is receiving those reports it is extremely hard to imagine they can say there is any element of "false positives" involved. Unless they are saying they contest non-delivery with those rejecting delivery (never heard of a provider doing that). Anyway, the headers included with the spam reports are quite conclusive and will be verifiable from the provider's mailserver logs.

If they are not receiving the reports then they are whistling in the dark. SC delists within 24 hours of spam from the specific IP address stopping - or earlier if the provider advises the spam source has been eliminated (providing it stays stopped). Blithely stating it's all false positives is not going to cut the mustard - it could result in future delisting requests being denied. spam is certainly coming from that network and will almost certainly continue to do so (not necessarily affecting all servers at the same time) until the perpetrators are found and stopped.

Anyone could sympathise with you - it is no fun sharing a network with spammers and "wearing" the consequences, most of us have experienced the same at some time (there's no joy in receiving the stuff either). It will be no consolation that the SCbl is not recommended for delivery denial - some mail administrators seem to (mis)use it that way regardless of the cautions against it. If your e-mail is critical to you, your best option is to run your own mail server from a static IP address - but that's more expensive. webhero.com's webmail is an option at a pinch (spammers don't seem to be using it) but hardly practical for commercial use. Worth keeping in mind though.

SpamCop is not the only RBL listing the mail.webhero.com servers. Currently three of them also appear on the NiX spam or UCEPROTECT or Mailspike lists as well (agree APEWS is irrelevant). The webhero help page http://help.webhero.com/category/email/ seems to imply there may have been problems in the past with the Spamhaus.org and Dsbl.org lists as well. The latter is now thoroughly defunct anyway. Your provider is doing something right - just one or two relevant listings per server out of 231-232 on the multiRBL lookup is pretty darn good. But maybe they're not doing quite all that they could.

And it's been said already but I will say it too - SpamCop of course blocks nothing - it is the providers of the people you are sending to who do any blocking and they do so for a reason. It is patently not an adequate reason but that's the way it is, unfortunately.

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Hi, ecotao,

...Sorry to hear of your problem. I presume you realize that you are on a Forum populated almost exclusively by SpamCop users, most of whom are satisfied with SpamCop and agree with what it does and therefore you will not likely find very many here friendly to your situation. You seem, however, to have been treated with relative respect in contrast to your (somewhat understandable) attacks of SpamCop, most of which are not consistent with what SpamCop actually does.

snip>

The whole mechanism is inherently wrong. You are effectively saying, "You have a thief living somewhere in your region - we saw him run there - so we are labeling you all as criminals. Even though you are law-abiding, you are to be denied your rights because someone near to is doing something wrong. We do not have a clue who it is, so we will brand the whole area as criminal".

...As others here have quite correctly pointed out, SpamCop labels no one and blocks no e-mail (it is not able to do that). SpamCop only lists IP addresses from which a certain amount of spam has been reported by at least two different users or from which e-mail has been sent to a SpamCop spam trap. It is others' e-mail providers who have chosen to use the SpamCop blacklist to block, contrary to SpamCop's own advice (but their server, their rules!).
It should not be my responsibility to try and fix this - and I cannot fix this.

<snip>

...True! If, for whatever reason, your service provider is unable or unwilling to work out with SpamCop whatever the root cause of the listing is and stop the spam going to the SpamCop spam traps from the listed IP address, you have every reason to take your hard-earned money to another provider who is not listed.
I cannot conduct my business and so feed my family if spamcop is blocking my legitimate emails.
...Speaking not as a happy SpamCop user but, rather, as an e-mail user, I would suggest to you that it is not a wise business model to rely on the internet for your business, especially e-mail. E-mail is not a guaranteed delivery mechanism and internet connections can and have been interrupted for various lengths of time. Alternate means of communication with your customers, prospective customers and providers would be wise, even if that means having a separate e-mail provider, even one of the many "free" ones, such as Yahoo, Google and Microsoft Hotmail.

...Good luck!

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Hi: I do not sell Pharmaceuticals, but various equipment from my website.

Looks to me a erectile dysfunction "pill" spammer has access to your providers email server/s

spammers often find/hack password/s to email servers

You need to talk to your provider about this and consider finding a better email service

Gmail for instance make this easy and even free depending on number o emails (yes you can take your domain name)

http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/busi...ucts.html#gmail

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Just to build a little on the messages that others are giving. The elephant in the room is that legitimate e-mail is a just a small proportion of the total committed to transmission. http://www.senderbase.org/home/detail_spam_volume estimates it currently at around 14%, the rest, 86%, being spam. That is actually a substantial improvement over the years (though I suspect it does not take into account the increasing volumes of spam that are blocked/discarded within networks through "outwards filtering", rate limiting and port blocking). It is cause for some amazement that legitimate mail (usually) gets through at all. The "costs" of delivery, though mostly hidden, is high - and we all pay it - but goodness knows how much worse it would be if no-one actively resisted spamming and spammers.

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  • 7 months later...
"...Speaking not as a happy SpamCop user but, rather, as an e-mail user, I would suggest to you that it is not a wise business model to rely on the internet for your business, especially e-mail. E-mail is not a guaranteed delivery mechanism and internet connections can and have been interrupted for various lengths of time. Alternate means of communication with your customers, prospective customers and providers would be wise, even if that means having a separate e-mail provider, even one of the many "free" ones, such as Yahoo, Google and Microsoft Hotmail. "

Hello all, I've been having issues lately and when I saw this it made me want to reply. I don't think the original poster is actually being heard. The issue is that LEGITIMATE EMAILS are getting blocked. I know because some of my emails are getting blocked too which is how I found this forum. And the reason why LEGITIMATE EMAILS are getting blocked is neither fair or logical. And I'm going to offer you, not just a complaint, but a solution.

First let me describe my problem. The above quote suggests using Yahoo. Ironically, my complaint is that emails from my Yahoo account are being blocked. Not all of them, but about 20 minutes ago I tried to email MYSELF, forwarding a business email from my personal Yahoo address to my business address and it got blocked. I had to turn off spam Assassin in order to get the email. Imagine if I were trying to forward the same LEGITIMATE EMAIL to a client or another business owner? You can't tell me "oh we're right 80% of the time so you should find a different way to email. Apparently, because spammers use Yahoo, Yahoo is getting flagged and every Yahoo email is potentially at risk for getting blocked. This is ridiculous. spam filters are for rooting out spam. Imagine if you were not allowed to fly on a plane because you were Muslim. How would you feel? What if your business required you to travel? This is not acceptable.

For SpamCop to work it needs to target actual spam and spammers. Throwing innocent people into Guantanamo simply because they live in the same neighborhood with a terrorist is not acceptable. Nor is punishing mail servers with high populations. So here is the simple solution. You need to white list servers owned by Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, and any other domain that hosts personal email addresses for the general public. If someone is reporting a Yahoo address then block only that email address, not the entire mail server. If spam is coming from "buycialisnow.com" then fine... list the whole domain or mail server. But you can't list high population servers just because some people are spamming.

If you want the owners of these high population mail servers to do more about the spammers make it so that there is an email address that you forward all of the spam to. If you cannot do that... again... do not list high pop mail servers. Also, I would refrain from telling someone how they should communicate with their clients. This is 2013. Email is the #1 form of communication for online business. Customers should at least be able to check their spam folder for mislabeled business email. But if its not even getting there then that's censorship and that is unacceptable. Spammers will see the bounced emails and they will adapt to this tactic. More false positives will result. You may not think so right now but SpamCop needs to change its practices. I represent a VERY SMALL FRACTION of the people who are willing to find this forum and actually say something. MANY MANY more people are feeling the same way and its only a matter of time before you have a bigger problem on your hands.

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Imagine if you were not allowed to fly on a plane because you were Muslim. How would you feel? What if your business required you to travel?
I like this analogy better: let's say you live in a bad neighborhood and the nearest pizza parlor refuses to deliver to your home because the owner doesn't want to risk the safety of his driver.

In this case the ISP is protecting their customers from people with bad intent. The owners of servers that convey mail directly to their customers have no obligation to accept mail from servers in "bad neighborhoods."

Wherever there are cars in the world, folks know that having a license to drive does not make you a careful or skilled driver. On the Information Superhighway, having servers and IP numbers does not make you a careful or skilled ISP operator.

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Looking at the Ecotao Enterprises website I see that one of the services you offer is website design and "economical" hosting.

It look like to me that webhero.com does your hosting, do you share mail servers with the others they host? You don't sell Pharmaceuticals, but how about the others? How about the examples of websites you have designed?

www.ecotao{DOT}com/holism/std-1.htm

www{DOT}spearfishing.co.za

www.health -herbal.com

www.ecot ao.com/holism/hoevo/index/html

Just as an aside totally unrelated to you email issue, I would think if you are going to advertise web design you would check the 404 link on you site. Packages like Fusion that you are using to build you webpages often do not build valid html code, as illustrated by the pages I checked.

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Hi, jonathans,

...Thank you for taking the time to reply here!

<snip>

I don't think the original poster is actually being heard. The issue is that LEGITIMATE EMAILS are getting blocked.

...Sorry, I disagree. Contributors lisati, petzl, Farelf and I all dealt directly with that issue. Legitimate e-mails being blocked is a problem; SpamCop is not the cause (although it provides a list of spam sources that some e-mail admins are using to block -- quite contrary to SpamCop's recommendation, by the way!).
<snip>

The above quote suggests using Yahoo. Ironically, my complaint is that emails from my Yahoo account are being blocked.

...Not exactly. It offered Yahoo, as well as a few other providers, as possible backup e-mail alternatives. There is also phone, text, snail-mail, Facebook, Twitter and numerous other communication options.
<snip>

I tried to email MYSELF, forwarding a business email from my personal Yahoo address to my business address and it got blocked. I had to turn off spam Assassin in order to get the email.

...And you are using spam Assassin causing your business e-mail provider to potentially block legitimate e-mail because .... :) <g>
<snip>

Apparently, because spammers use Yahoo, Yahoo is getting flagged and every Yahoo email is potentially at risk for getting blocked. This is ridiculous.

...Why, just because legitimate users also use Yahoo? There may be a case for that for specific e-mail providers; the case would be best made to them, not to SpamCop. SpamCop lists spam sources for whatever use people wish to make of it. Excluding specific e-mail sources like Yahoo from the list for whatever reason would defeat the purpose.
<snip>Nor is punishing mail servers with high populations.
...SpamCop's algorithm for determining what sources to list actually discriminates in favor of large e-mail providers with large numbers of outgoing e-mails, as it should. See the SpamCop FAQ article labeled "What is on the list?" for more detail about this, if you care to know (warning: it's a fairly technical explanation).
<snip>

So here is the simple solution. You need to white list servers owned by Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, and any other domain that hosts personal email addresses for the general public.

...Not SpamCop, SpamCop's users, those that are using the SpamCop blacklist to outright block all e-mails from listed spam sources!
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<snip>

block only that email address, not the entire mail server.

...That isn't possible; e-mail addresses listed in e-mail headers do not necessarily include the sending account ID. In spam, the "To" address is almost always forged.
<snip>

If you want the owners of these high population mail servers to do more about the spammers make it so that there is an email address that you forward all of the spam to.

...SpamCop does exactly that, whenever a SpamCop user submits a spam report to SpamCop! But many admins don't read or don't act on such reports; there's nothing SpamCop can do to make them act. Some such reports actually go to the spammers themselves (although SpamCop tries to avoid doing that).
<snip>

I would refrain from telling someone how they should communicate with their clients. This is 2013. Email is the #1 form of communication for online business.

...SpamCop does not do that. I merely offered what I thought was food for thought. That e-mail is the #1 form of communication for online business does not make it the most reliable. Yes, quite right, it is 2013, and there's social media and other forms of communication other than e-mail available now! :) <g>
<snip>

Customers should at least be able to check their spam folder for mislabeled business email. But if its not even getting there then that's censorship and that is unacceptable.

...Quite right, and exactly what SpamCop itself recommends, but, again, that's a matter for e-mail admin users of blacklists, not for the providers of the blacklist. The blacklist providers have no leverage (and IMHO should have no leverage) over how their blacklists are used.
<snip>

I represent a VERY SMALL FRACTION of the people who are willing to find this forum and actually say something.

...And, as a SpamCop reporting user and philosophical supporter, I appreciate that!
MANY MANY more people are feeling the same way and its only a matter of time before you have a bigger problem on your hands.
...That shouldn't result in any problem for SpamCop but I appreciate your concern!
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To the OP and JonathanS: You're missing the point. SpamCop does NOT block any email. SpamCop creates a block list that SERVER OPERATORS use to check incoming email connections. Spamcop itself recommends moving email from listed servers be moved to a "suspected spam" folder for user review. However, Spamcop CANNOT require that. SpamCop has no control over how email server owners use their list. Just as an example someone could use the SCBL in reverse and only ACCEPT email from LISTED sources (why you'd want to do that, I don't know, but you could.)

So, you see, the problem you have isn't with SpamCop, it's with your email provider because they are not taking care of the spam originating from the email server you are using. Whether that's because your email provider is getting paid to turn a blind eye to the spam (it happens more than you'd imagine) or whether the mail server has been hacked or someone's home PC has been hacked to turn it into a spambot, the fact of the matter is that your email provider is the responsible party on whom the burden falls to resolve the issue.

I used to work at an internet provider and we had a complaint one time by someone that one of our users was attacking them, and I had to call the client and tell them to behave. That's what a responsible internet provider does.

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  • 1 month later...

No, they are not missing the point. It is irresponsible for SpamCop to do what they are doing.

By the logic of the SpamCop supporters, it should be okay for someone to manufacture Crystal Meth as long at they don't tell people to use it to get high, right?

The concerns of the OP and JohnathanS are valid. Producing Blocklists (that's what SpamCop call them) at the IP level is just plain stupid and irresponsible. You say it's impossible for them to do a better job? Fine, then get out of the business altogether.

We advise companies to block spam by doing content inspection. This is the correct way to deal with it. It's effective and does not punish or damage the innocent.

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No, they are not missing the point. It is irresponsible for SpamCop to do what they are doing.

By the logic of the SpamCop supporters, it should be okay for someone to manufacture Crystal Meth as long at they don't tell people to use it to get high, right?

NO. How about this analogy... if you don't want the cops to come busting in looking for meth you shouldn't live in the same house as someone who buys large quantities of pseudoephedrine.

The concerns of the OP and JohnathanS are valid. Producing Blocklists (that's what SpamCop call them) at the IP level is just plain stupid and irresponsible. You say it's impossible for them to do a better job? Fine, then get out of the business altogether.

We advise companies to block spam by doing content inspection. This is the correct way to deal with it. It's effective and does not punish or damage the innocent.

No, I'm sorry. Block lists are here to stay. As long as there are spam-friendly ISPs and spammers, there will be block lists. They are too popular. There are even block lists to block certain countries. Are you saying that since a large majority of spam comes from, say China, we shouldn't block Chinese emails if we don't normally correspond with someone from China??? Sorry, dude... I'm all for block lists. I have to wonder who's ox is being gored, my friend... why are you screaming so loud for SpamCop to stop? Could it be you have an ulterior motive for wanting the SCBL to go away? Maybe you feel the SCBL is cutting into your consulting business? The SCBL is just another tool that mail admins can use to help sort the wheat from the chaff. I, for one, am glad the SCBL exists and am happy to feed it.

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<snip>

You say it's impossible for them to do a better job? Fine, then get out of the business altogether.

<snip>

...PSA tests have been discovered in some research to be less useful in identifying possible prostate cancer than originally thought and could have some harmful effects in some cases, especially if the results are misinterpreted. However, that hasn't stopped me from following my doctors' advice to get PSA tests at least annualy, because there's nothing nearly as inexpensive and simple that is at least somewhat effective!
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We advise companies to block spam by doing content inspection. This is the correct way to deal with it. It's effective and does not punish or damage the innocent.

Content inspection, at best, only lets you know that the message MIGHT be spam. One man's junk is another man's treasure.

Blocking works best if you are able to do it during the SMTP dialog, i.e. while the message is still being delivered. Content inspection often requires the acceptance of an email by the email server. If for some reason the content filter decides that a particular message is spam, the filter is left with the task of figuring out what to do with the offending message. Because the "From" headers and other such details are commonly forged, blindly firing off a rejection message risks contributing to the spam problem by annoying innocent third parties. On the other hand, if the offending message is redirected to a spam folder, it isn't really blocked.

In short, content filtering is only one of the options available to an email provider. On its own, it won't suit everyone's needs. Personally, i'd rather not have to periodically review a spam folder.

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Content inspection, at best, only lets you know that the message MIGHT be spam. One man's junk is another man's treasure.

Blocking works best if you are able to do it during the SMTP dialog, i.e. while the message is still being delivered. Content inspection often requires the acceptance of an email by the email server. If for some reason the content filter decides that a particular message is spam, the filter is left with the task of figuring out what to do with the offending message. Because the "From" headers and other such details are commonly forged, blindly firing off a rejection message risks contributing to the spam problem by annoying innocent third parties. On the other hand, if the offending message is redirected to a spam folder, it isn't really blocked.

In short, content filtering is only one of the options available to an email provider. On its own, it won't suit everyone's needs. Personally, i'd rather not have to periodically review a spam folder.

Amen! Well said! Most people who know me know I have multiple email addresses and if I'm looking for something in particular and I don't get it, I'll go to my held mail folder here on SpamCop and look for it. I also try to review all held email to make sure it's spam before I report it. There have been a few times I"ve caught something that is "Ham" vs "spam" but for the most part 99.999% of the email in the junk folder is spam.

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