FAQ

Very well !
The blacklist maintainer investigates Spam complaints and once a server has been positively implicated, its address is added to the black list and the administrator of the server is notified that his server is now blacklisted. (Mail servers cannot hide their Internet addresses, so Spammers cannot falsify the information)

In addition to this, the RBL provider publishes hundreds of thousands of email addresses (honey pots) where Spammers can easily send Spam to them. Once a Spammer sends an email to one of these email addresses, that server is immediately classified as a Spam server.

This technique works very well because the Spammer has no way to know that joesoap@yourname.co.za is actually not a real person but a Spam trap. ISPs and Companies now use this RBL to check each and every email coming in to their servers. If the sending server is a known Spammer, the email is flagged as Spam and rejected immediately – before it lands up in your In Box.

The RBL is constantly updated as the Spammers move their accounts to new ISPs or when they use a new Zombie PC to send Spam, because they inevitably send Spam to a honey pot address, causing that source of Spam to be identified and blacklisted.

Are there any downsides to this?

The possible downside is that we will automatically reject Spam if it is sent from a blacklisted server or ISP, and notify the SENDER. Considering most rejections will be from known Spammers, this will protect you.

There may be cases where your friend or colleague who has successfully emailed you in the past may get emails rejected - the only reason for this is that their ISP has been blacklisted, and the solution is for the SENDER to report this to their ISP.

Even responsible ISPs can be blacklisted periodically - and providing they take strict action against their users - this blacklisting can be reversed within a short period.

This will not be a content scanning service, so we will not block emails containing racist or sexist or pornographic words - we only block emails from known Spamming servers (which is automatically and continuously updated).

We are implementing this valuable service for all subscribers at no charge to you, and you do not have to make any changes.

Should you wish to block content, look at Webmail with Spam Assassin and eScan ISS

Your browsing and News services will be unaffected.