Another popular approach
to the spam problem is to use a service which will pre-screen all
your e-mail for you and only allow messages through if they appear
to be genuine.
Typically you will be
required to provide a list of 'approved' e-mail addresses and any e-mails
originating from these addresses will be forwarded straight on to
you. Messages arriving from other senders will be intercepted and
the senders sent a message asking who they are and why they are writing
to you. Most spam is sent by automatic mailers, so they will not respond
to this, and their messages will therefore not be forwarded on to
you. The senders of genuine messages will respond by stating their
business (you hope), and their message will then be allowed to pass,
both this time and on future occasions.
These services are becoming
increasingly popular among companies and other organisations. Compared
with ISP filtering, they offer much greater control over how spam
is defined and dealt with. On the other hand, it is possible that some potential clients
may be deterred if their enquiry is initially 'rejected' by your organisation's
filtering service, and some other advertising messages which might
potentially be of interest to you may likewise be filtered out. Nevertheless,
if you can put up with these drawbacks, these services can provide
a high degree of protection against spam.
One company providing
this service is Digiportal Software. Their program ChoiceMail
One
is a spam e-mail blocking system that works by requiring unknown
senders to fill in a form to get your permission to send you e-mail.
You can also add rules to ChoiceMail One to automate the approval
or rejection process based on the address or content of an incoming
e-mail message. You can download a 14-day trial version of the ChoiceMail
software by clicking on the banner below.
Click here
to see some recent reviews of Choicemail One. Use the back button
on your browser to return here.
