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E-mail
whitelists are the ultimate in spam protection, and go
beyond the safeguards used by spam filters and spam blockers
to almost completely eliminate the possibility of receiving
spam.
Whitelists
work like fortresses to completely protect the user against
invasion. Before e-mail from a new address can be allowed
into the inbox, the user must answer questions or type
in a partially obscured code that is recognizable on normal
computers, but cannot be detected by the kind of software
spammers often use.
The
result is a combination of computer technology and a user's
own judgement to decide which users will be allowed to
send e-mail to the account or not. Once the potential
sender is approved, he or she can send e-mail to the account
without having to re-register.
Many
people prefer whitelists to spam filters and spam blockers.
Spam filters are often free with any e-mail provider,
and use probability formulas to calculate the likelihood
that e-mails containing certain keywords will be spam.
The
problem with this approach is that many spammers can get
around these filters by using words not associated with
spam and by intentionally misspelling keywords to fool
the filter. Although filters are effective, there is usually
a 10% to 20% failure rate. This may be acceptable to some,
but for business owners who receive hundreds of e-mails
a day, this means that at least 100 spam e-mails a day
end up in the inbox.
Spam
blockers offer a higher degree of protection, but also
have their drawbacks. Spam blockers must be downloaded
and require registration to send e-mails. All unfamiliar
e-mails are sent to another file for the user to approve.
Spam blockers, unlike filters, are entirely user driven,
but have the disadvantage that sometime the user can be
fooled concerning what is spam. Spammers often spoof e-mails
that are familiar to the user to encourage the user to
accept the e-mails.
Whitelists
combine the best of technological ability and user judgement.
The user approves a message, but the person registering
is required to type in a code that would not be recognizable
to those with spamming software. Blocking is not merely
left to the judgement of the user or to the computer's
ability to find spammers, but the combination of the two
make whitelists the most effective choice for spam blocking.
Some
may find whitelists to be a bit strict and inconvenient,
and fear that some legitimate senders might be put off
by the registration process. Others would rather take
this risk than to accept spam. Once a person is registered,
his or her e-mail is accepted on the site, so there is
no more red tape.
Another
objection is that sometimes the code is difficult to read
even for legitimate senders. However, a sender can always
try to register again unless he or she has been blacklisted.
Although
some believe that whitelists threaten to take some of
the spontaneity out of e-mail, others believe that this
spontaneity is not worth all of the spam. Business owners
use whitelist to ensure that no valuable time is wasted
sorting through hundreds of spam messages a day, and this
also saves money in the long run.
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