Spam/Junk Email Filtering

Your inbound College email is processed and checked for unwanted, unsolicited email (commonly called SPAM) by default. This filtering system helps reduce the volume of unwanted email that gets into your inbox, which in turn is good for the network because it reduces the amount of email our systems must deliver.

How Email Filtering Works

Email filtering takes advantage of a special computer that has been configured to analyze the content of emails directed to all accounts. The content is examined for special things that are commonly found in spam messages... things like bright red background color, dozens of exclamation points, multiple use of the word FREE in capital letters and so forth. Each time a characteristic is detected, the spam "score" of the email is increased a little. If this score gets high enough, the message is considered to be spam and processed as detailed below. The analysis for spam content is done by a computer and is completely anonymous. Spam filtering does not require us to read your email and the computer keeps no records or detail of message content whatsoever.

Using our best guess as to what spam is, and is not, we have conservatively determined that if the spam score on any given message is 20 or more points the message is almost certainly spam and we discard it (you will not receive it). Normally, a non-spam message scores less than 5.

All messages that score less than 20 are delivered to your email box. There, if you want, you can create local rules in Outlook using the "Rule Wizard" to further refine your tolerance for spam. For instance, if you believe a score of 10 means spam, you can create a rule in Outlook that deletes messages that score 10 or more. Or, if you don't want to immediately delete such messages you could write your rule to move them to a special folder until you are sure they are unwanted. A step by step procedure on creating Outlook rules for spam control is available by clicking here.

Another way to filter out spam or junk email is to follow the instructions in this link.

An important note: No spam filter system is foolproof. If you use email filtering to control spam, there is a very small (but non-zero) chance that a desired email will occasionally be stopped. If you feel that the advantages of the spam control system do not outweigh the small risk of losing a desired email, opt out of the system by selecting the DO NOT FILTER option.

Email filtering is on by default. If you are on the network using Outlook, you can use these links to change how we process spam for you. On the screen that appears, leave the Subject line as-is, the message body blank, and then click SEND:

• Please FILTER my email for spam, click here
• Please DO NOT FILTER my email for spam, click here

If you have any further questions about the process of spam filtering, please feel free to email Mike Hayden.