Combating unsolicited commercial e-mail (SPAM)
We propose a multi-level system to combat unsolicited commercial e-mail (SPAM):
1. SPAM filter on the server
Our DF.eu email server serves as the first wall against spam
Here, detected viruses are filtered and you can decide whether you want to have suspicious emails delivered with a mark as “spam” or reject them right away.
Recommended: Reject spam instead of moving it to junk folder(source)
2. SPAM filter in e-mail program
Some e-mail programs have built-in spam filters. You should use these filters! “Junk“, “spam” or “advertising” means the same thing and refers to unwanted advertising and virus mails that you often receive in masses unsolicited and that clutter up your inbox.
First of all, some information on how this spam filter works in order to use it optimally: The filter is quite “dumb” at first, you have to train it which mail it should evaluate as spam and which mail accidentally recognized as spam by the filter are actually not spam. After all, what constitutes spam varies from user to user: for example, the word “sex” may be an indication of an indecent offer to most recipients, but to a doctor it may be a common practice word when discussing therapy with a patient via email. The filter works like this: for example, if you have marked a mail containing the word “sex” as “junk” 10 times, the filter assumes that the 11th mail, which again contains this keyword “sex”, is also spam.
a. Own email client on your computer
To train the filter, select the conspicuous mails over a longer period of time (e.g. 4 weeks) and use the “Junk” and “No Junk” buttons to mark them for the program. The more consistently you train the filter, especially in the early days, the better the results. But don’t expect one hundred percent security: spammers know this filter as well and try to irritate it with always new tricks so that it doesn’t recognize keywords: “Sex”, for example, can also be written legibly like this: “ŚĔ.X”. This is another word for a filter. (This explains why many spams use such horrible German). However, the filters of most modern email clients (like Apple Mail and Thunderbold are pretty good at seeing through this if they are well trained. According to our suggested settings, spam is stored locally (until it is deleted after 14 days, a month – or whatever you set there).
“Local” means that the corresponding mail is no longer on the server but only in your e-mail program on your computer – and is therefore no longer available for other connected systems (iPhone, webmail…) or is automatically synchronized away there. The advantage is that you do not have to sort out spam on each system individually. “Local” also means that only you can then check the “junk” to see if there might be a good mail after all. With “No Junk” the mail should then end up in the inbox again (will be reported as mail to all other systems again) and can be processed normally.
With this knowledge, you will quickly learn to appreciate the filter.
b. Spam filter services on the Internet
Please google for the keywords “online spam filter service”, there are a number of providers. For data protection reasons, choose an EU provider if possible and agree on a so-called order data processing contract with them.