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Dealing with spam email

Spam is unsolicited email on the Internet. From the sender's point of view it is a form of bulk email to a list of subscribers. To the receiver, it usually seems like junk email, and can be very annoying, especially as it can fill up your mailbox with unwanted e-mails.

Isn’t spam illegal?

As of the 11th of April, 2003 all commercial emails will be governed by the Spam Act 2003 (Ch) that prohibits the sending of commercial emails. Each email you receive is required to include an unsubscribe option, as well as information regarding the person who authorised the message and their contact details. This applies to all emails where the message originates in, or is received in Australia.

If you receive a commercially based unsolicited email with an offer to supply or advertise goods or services, suppliers, business or investment opportunities, you can contact the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) with your concerns.

To combat the growing spam problem Multibase has introduced spam filtering and tagging. In general it's not considered good netiquette to send spam.

How do people sending spam email get my email address?

People that send spam acquire email addresses by various means, such as:

  • By establishing contact with web page administrators and arranging for email addresses which are submitted on the site to be forwarded to them.
  • By running a dictionary of possible usernames against a chosen domain to get the username@domain email address.
  • Your email address can also be lifted from news group and message board posts and various chat programs.
  • Gathering your email address through software registration or competition entries for opt-in mailing lists.

What can I do to minimize the amount of spam email I receive?

If you are receiving spam email there are a few steps you can take to avoid attracting similar email in the future. Unfortunately none of these methods are foolproof, but can often be worth a try regardless:

  • Use Multibase’s Spam tagging tool, which marks the e-mails most likely to be spam, making it easy for you to determine which emails are spam and which are not. You can then configure your email client to put spam-tagged emails in a separate folder.
  • Be careful about who you give your email address to, and what you are agreeing to when filling in forms online.

If you wish to opt out of mail from Multibase, such as our newsletter and general product information, please contact us.

Multibase spam tagging

The Multibase spam filtering and tagging tool makes a number of checks for each received email. They are: 

  • Check to see if the sender’s Internet address is on a list of known spam senders. If so we reject the email immediately with a message saying why. This check alone should take care of 90% of the spam email.
  • Check to see if the message “envelope” details are valid. If not we reject the email and send an appropriate message.
  • Examine the contents of the message to see if the email “looks” like spam. If it does look like spam we add “[SPAM]” to the message subject and deliver it to you.
If an email you expect does not arrive

Current best practice in the industry is to filter all email arriving through “black lists” which identify the domains or IP addresses of known spammers, and to reject mail identified as spam. Our new black list filtering will no longer deliver the 90% of email that we currently receive which is genuinely spam.

Black lists are maintained by a variety of means and are not always 100% accurate. It is possible that an occasional legitimate email is not delivered to you, having been rejected by the black list. Even reputable ISPs can be listed temporarily on black lists.

  • If a legitimate missing email is brought to your attention by someone trying to send to you, please contact customerservice@mbase.com or 02 9805 7373 and we will try to assist you.
Move tagged email automatically to Junk email

The black lists filter out the 90% of mail that is spam. About half of the remaining 10% may be spam, and the remainder genuine email. All this mail be processed by our spam filters, and delivered to your Inbox. Suspect email will be attached to an automated email from the spam filter, tagged with [SPAM] in the subject line of the email, and include an explanation of the reason for identification.

  • If you wish to setup a rule in your mail client to send [SPAM] automatically to Junk Email, select Tools > Rules and alerts in Microsoft Outlook.
  • Select New Rule.
  • Ensure the radio button "Start creating rule from a template" is selected.
  • Under Step 1: Select a template >  Stay Organised, select "Move messages with specific words in the subject to a specified folder".
  • On the same dialogue box, under Step 2: Edit the rule description, click "specific words".
  • Type [SPAM], and press Add, then press OK.
  • This will take you back to the previous dialogue box. Under Step 2: Edit the rule description, click "specified".
  • Scroll down to select your Junk E-mail folder (or other folder), and press OK.
  • Press Finish.
Spam in the eye of the beholder

What is spam to one person may be a legitimate email to another; email newsletters are typical examples of this. So it may be that some mail will be allowed through which you think is spam, and some legitimate email may be wrongly identified as spam.

  • If you receive a tagged email that you consider is not spam, email customerservice@mbase.com.au with the original email attached. To do this in Outlook, select the email in your email list. Select Edit > Copy. Open a new email. Select Edit > Paste and the email will be attached. Please note it is imperative that you send the email as an attachment because this is the only way that we can view the header records that we need to investigate.
  • If you receive an email that you consider spam, follow the same procedure and attach it to a new email.
    We hope that these measures will improve our email service for you, and we thank you for your patience while the system is implemented.
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