Blacklist or Whitelist?

By Bradley Charbonneau | Filed under Email, Help, Spam

There are probably as many strategies to stop spam as there are to send it. For the article below, I’m only talking about working with YOUR email address (you@yourdomain.com), not blacklisting or whitelisting THEIR email addresses (viagra@cheapdrugs.com). Here are two main strategies.

Blacklist
Allow all mail to come in to any email address with your domain at the end of it. For example, set up your default email address (you@yourdomain.com) so that you get all email to your domain. You’ll get you@yourdomain.com and info@yourdomain.com, but you’ll also get webmaster@yourdomain.com and admin@yourdomain.com–those last two are favorites for spammers to guess.

This strategy works for a while, but the spammers will get more creative and start with john@yourdomain.com and countryhomes@yourdomain.com and you’ll be battling a giant.

Whitelist
A more extreme yet more effective method is whitelisting. You block every incoming possibility, but allow the ones you use (info@yourdomain.com, you@yourdomain.com). If you sign up with Amazon and you used amazon@yourdomain.com, you can set up a forwarder to allow that address. Yes, it’s more time consuming to add those you use, but it’s a much easier battle.

Products you can use

Spam Arrest is web-based and will bring your spam down to zero. No, really. You’ll have to create whitelists for a while, but it works well. Monthly fee after free trial.

Choice Mail is a computer based product that works with your email program (Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, etc.). If you just have one email address you’re trying to work with, they have a free product.