In January, the virus software giant McAfee extended its product line in the spam arena with the acquisition of Deersoft Inc, the makers of the popular SpamAssasin software. Look for McAfee to integrate this into its suite of tools in an upgrade later in 2003.
As these spam software packages become more popular, it is important to understand how they work so that we can make sure that our newsletters do not get tagged as false positives.
There are several ways that spam services detect and block spam, but most rely on content-based filters. The idea is that spammers can adapt to circumvent any other barrier, but ultimately, they have to deliver their message. If the software is intelligent enough to pick the undesirable content from the rest, then the whole thing works.
Most have developed a list if rules of spam-like qualities. Each has a score or value attached to it and the more qualities found, the higher the score and the more likely the guilt. Conversely, other terms and qualities are less likely to occur in spam so they may detract points from the overall score. This method considers all the evidence from an email, both good and bad, to determine its fate. As a result, an innocent email that mentions sex won’t automatically be tagged as spam.
A SpamAssasin list I’ve seen has about 1000 rules listed. Most are things that iMakeNews senders won’t ever have to worry about. This includes a blank sender address, fake IP address, invalid dates, hidden text - text same color as background and identical ‘from’ and ‘to’ headers. Obviously, they also look for terms and phrases that are uniquely used in pornographic and other offensive content.
There are a few qualities on the list that a legitimate email marketer might use inadvertently in a newsletter, so make sure you take note of the following:
- Don't put too many terms in caps
- Free Installation, Free Preview
- Don't put the username or email in the subject line
- Don't use html with a non-white background
- Don't use addresses as the recipient, such as Dear (email address)
- Always provide instruction for getting off the list
- Don't refer to check or money order
- Don't make claims of compliance with spam laws / spam disclaimers including reference to Senate Bill 1618
Senate Bill 1618 was a bill from a couple years ago that stated it is acceptable to send unsolicited email if it included contact information and the method for list removal was clearly stated. The problem is that this bill was never enacted into law.
I found some of the trigger phrases most amusing from the list. If you are in one of these businesses, you may run into more trouble than most. Stop snoring, Reverse aging, Free investment, Stock disclaimer, Remove wrinkles, and Cure baldness.
A recent CNET review gave the SpamAssassin product very high marks, but commented that it did produce a “fairly high” number of false positives. The fix is easy, users simply select the message from the junk mail folder and click the ‘Allow Sender’ button to allow all future messages from this sender to pass though. It sounds simple, but how often would you be tempted to review the evil that lurks in that fat junk mail folder.
Since everyone uses email differently, SpamAssassin and others like it let the user customize the filter to determine the level of protection they want.
I hope you found this information helpful. In case you are wondering how all these offending terms made it through your spam filter, the answer is that iMakeNews hosts a companion microsite along with each newsletter (which you are on now), so just the front page of the newsletter is susceptible to spam filters.
Brian Cavoli is an interactive marketing consultant delivering innovative online media solutions for businesses. He can be reached at bcavoli@attbi.com.
