Spam Email - FAQ

What makes the Spam Email Assistant filters different from the spam filters found in my email application?

The mail filters found in email products have a number of limitations and often assume a "one size fits all" solution. You are often expected to develop your own filter rules from the limited tools provided. Further, you must still download email before the mail client can filter it, possibly wasting time and bandwidth while waiting to read mail, such as spam, that you would not want anyway.

With the Spam Email Assistant filters, all email processing is done behind the scenes before it arrives in the inbox. This saves time and bandwidth by not forcing you to download superfluous email, such as unsolicited offers. Moreover, improvements are done without modifications to your email services or email client. The Spam Email Assistant performance is superior, identifying up to 95% of your spam email.

How do I know spam email is being filtered and not my regular (legitimate) email?

An advanced filtering technique is used built on heuristic rules, lists of approved and blocked senders, and databases of known spam email to maintain the effectiveness of the rules system. Despite these advanced measures, some good email may get caught since the concept of spam email is subjective (one man's trash is another man's treasure). To remedy this, we let you set a lenient-to-aggressive tolerance for filtering suspicious email: lenient filtering potentially lets more spam email through, but also minimizes the risk of legitimate email from getting mistakenly directed to the Message Center; conversely, aggressive filtering catches more suspicious email at the risk of mistakenly diverting normal email to the Message Center. You're notified with regular summary reports of your Message Center activities. With the right configuration, less than 1% of valid email is falsely identified as suspicious.

Does someone read personal emails?

No. All email processing is done through automated filters. Further, it is unlikely that a particular email stays around long enough since a single message is processed within milliseconds and does not write valid messages to disk. In the event a "suspicious" email is discovered, it will be directed to your private Message Center pending your review.

How do I get notified when email is quarantined as suspicious spam email?

A regular report is sent via email of newly quarantined email. However, you can log in to the Message Center at any time to monitor and review detained messages.

What if I want to receive spam email?

Click on the Spam Email link at the top of the Message Center, and click on OFF. Before you do this, you should try to set your Filter Sensitivity to Lenient to see if that amount of protection satisfies your needs.

However, if too much legitimate email is detained, first try setting "Filter Sensitivity" to moderate or lenient and/or uncheck any "Filter Categories" that are unwanted. It also helps to explicitly list certain email addresses to allow their messages through the filters, regardless of content. Do this by entering valid addresses in the Approved Senders field.

What happens in the event that the email pre-processing servers fail?

A large number of enterprise-scale servers dedicated to processing email are deployed. However, in the event of a catastrophe, email will be passed around the system by defaulting to your email provider's regular mail servers. There will be no noticeable performance hit. Any suspect messages that were diverted to the Message Center are stored on redundant disk storage devices that are backed up.

How often is email deleted from the Message Center?

Email messages are kept in the Message Center for 14 days following the receipt of the message--this includes any messages that have been moved to your "Trash Folder". After 14 days from first receipt, any message will be deleted. Email service providers will send an email activity report on a regular basis to remind you to check your Message Center. You can also access the Message Center at any time.

What if I receive spam, what should I do with it?

If spam email reaches your desktop and appears in your email inbox, you can simply delete the message or forward it to spam@postini.com. This allows us to use the email for future enhancements. You can also visit the Message Center and add the sender's address to your "Blocked Senders" list if it appears to be a repeat offender, preventing that sender from reaching the inbox again. It might also be useful to try increasing the sensitivity level in the configuration or turn on specific filter categories.

What if legitimate email is quarantined in the Message Center?

Unfortunately, some legitimate email may be erroneously directed to your Message Center. This is due to the subjective nature of email messages and what could possibly be considered spam email. If a significant amount of valid email is being misdirected to the Message Center, a list of approved senders can be built, thereby minimizing the possibility of detaining a valid email in the future.

From the Message Center, click "deliver" for any legitimate email and you will be asked if all messages from this sender should be delivered--that sender is then added to the "Approved Sender" list. Next time, messages from that sender will not be detained unless the Virus Assistant is active and detects a virus from that sender. You may also manually build your approved senders list by visiting your spam email settings.

Does the Spam Mail Assistant watch for obscene language and other questionable content?

The Spam Email Assistant is tuned for identifying unsolicited commercial email (UCE), otherwise known as spam or spam email. This is somewhat different than filtering specifically for content, like most email filtering. For example, a friend sends a joke containing obscenities. This originates from a known source, whereas a message of unknown origin containing obscenities that refers to a pornography site WOULD likely be directed to the Message Center. Of course, you have the ability to explicitly block any address--in case you want to restrict email from a known source.

Does the Spam Mail Assistant watch for email only written in English?

Yes, at this time English is the only language supported.