Fighting Spam

Spam is a real problem on the web and it affects nearly everyone with an e-mail account. 12 Point Design is dedicated to helping you fight Spam, without resorting to infringing on your rights, as so many other Internet providers do.

We understand that your e-mail is important. We do not by default currently auto scan your e-mail for Spam. Many internet hosting companies provide this as a "service" to their users. What they may not reveal is that in doing so, they often filter out wanted e-mail. Leading to frustration and a possible loss of business potential.

We have provided some spam-fighting techniques that should help you substantially reduce the level of spam in your mailbox.

How did the spammer obtain your E-mail address?

Let me count the ways.

• Is your E-mail address posted on your website?
• Have you used it to send E-mail to a commercial or unknown entity that may sell or lease mailing lists?
• Have you used it while participating in newsgroups?
• Have you used it to subscribe to mailing lists?

Spammers get E-mail addresses in all these ways and more. Once you are on their list your E-mail address will likely be sold to others. Leading to even more unwanted Spam.

Never respond to spam. Refuse to do business with spammers.

What can I do to combat spam?

• 12 Point Design performs a series of spam filters for each message received, which significantly reduces the likelihood of spam ever making it to your inbox. However, there are times when spam does get by. For these cases you need some form of filtering software on your computer to reduce or eliminate the spam you actually see.
• SpamBayes is a bayesian spam filter, which is a fancy way of saying that it evaluates the content of emails you receive and either approve of or eliminate, and builds a database to provide the same activity based on your own history. Emails containing keywords you flag as spam will be flagged and removed for you, increasing in accuracy the longer you use it.
• Set your E-mail reader to filter out obvious spam or porn key words and phrases and dump that E-mail directly into the trash.

Reporting Spam can be tricky, as many spammers will forge headers making it difficult to track them down. For information on how to read headers, visit Consumer Fraud Reporting.

Spamcop* offers a free reporting service that will analyze the spam's headers and report it to the ISPs likely to be able to help.

* Note: Some users report that E-mail addresses used here find their way onto spam lists. Consider using a "throw-away" E-mail account, such as a Hotmail or Yahoo account for reporting spam.

What is 12 Point Design's policy regarding spam?

We do not tolerate spammers, and we do not allow relaying through our system. If you believe you have been spammed through a 12 Point Design mail server, please report the incident to our Abuse Contact. Please send us the entire message, including the complete headers.

Contact us!