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mailbox.org spam filter

You are probably familiar with spam folders from working with other mail systems where you have to scan through the folder in order to find real messages that may have been lost. Sometimes providers even have a separate spam quarantine where you must log in to search for misplaced messages.

At mailbox.org this kind of behavior is deactivated by default. We filter messages containing spam and viruses in real-time – during the process of receiving the e-mail. If our filter detects spam, our system immediately rejects the message and the message is returned to the sender with a delivery failure notification. That has a number of advantages:

  • Legally for the recipient, as he or she is no longer responsible for scanning the e-mails piled up in the spam quarantine folder
  • In terms of communications for both sender and recipient, as the sender is informed immediately when a message has been bounced

We have compiled a list of these benefits in our ‘Spam Tagging and Quarantine – The Biggest Mistake’ (german).

Our spam analysis actually has very little to do with the content of the message. Just because a message contains the word ‘Viagra’ doesn’t automatically make it spam. Spam is spam because it is sent by obscure senders using obscure methods. Therefore, our analyses are based primarily on who is sending the message and only to a very limited extent on what is being sent. Here we use a number of different methods simultaneously. These methods complement one another to produce the best possible result.

For this reason, you do not need to worry that you won’t receive e-mails from eBay, Facebook, and other providers. They are well-known and established. We do not have any trouble processing this type of e-mail. The problem is the spam e-mails sent by virus-infected private Windows PCs (via so-called ‘botnets’). Here we have identified characteristic features that allow us to differentiate between e-mails sent by these sources and e-mails sent by real mail servers.

Tip: Do you know who spammers are, how spam functions, and how spammers earn their money? Have a look at our article entitled ‘The Other Side of Spam – How Does Spam Work and Who is Behind It?’ (german).