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.