Because of chronic problems with spam on the internet, we want to make sure that all of our clients understand exactly what "spam" is, and what Bway.net's policies on spam entail. "Spam" is internet jargon for any unrequested, mass e-mailing or Usenet posting, whether for advertising, marketing, political canvassing or any other reason. The following is an example of a typical marketing spam:

>Greetings,
>I would like to introduce our new [product omitted] site.
>We believe it is the best site of its kind on the net.
>We feature classic and contemporary [product omitted] at price that can
>not be lower anyplace else. Please check it out at: [address omitted.]

Sending any such spam from a Bway.net account is strictly forbidden and will result in the immediate, non-refundable cancellation of the sender's account, with no exceptions. This policy arises out of concern for the service which we provide to our users. Because spam often results in a "retaliatory strike" by the person who reads it, one spam can cause a flood of un-solicited e-mail so intense that it can overload our mail server. Beyond that, sending spam is also obnoxious, and can result in generally bad karma. If you have any questions about this policy, please give us a call.

Filtering

One way to keep spam out of your inbox is to use a filter. Although some ISPs filter spam directly, Bway takes a different approach to eliminating spam at its source (for details, see the section "Mail Abuse Prevention System" below). Filtering by the ISP can only work a few different ways, and none of the ways are very desirable. For instance, we could filter by a spammer's domain, but then we would be losing connectivity to a lot of legitimate mail as well as spam. We could also filter by header attributes, for instance, by blank lines in the from: field, but then we would be losing bounces and other potentially significant mail. The best solution is for the end user (that's you) to set up filtering independently. You can do this with most commercial mail clients, like Eudora.

Filtering With Eudora

The screenshot above shows the proper way to set up a spam filter in Eudora. Click on Tools and then Filters. Click New to create a new filter. Set the filter up as shown above, putting the spammer's e-mail address in the field where the "<>" is. Then close the Filter window and save. From now on, any mail you receive will go directly into your trash rather than your inbox. If you need any help, call Bway technical support.

Mail Abuse Prevention System

In the interest of preventing the spread of spam, Bway.net participates in the Mail Abuse Prevention System. This program is run by a non-profit organization that maintains a list of mail servers known to have been used for the propagation of unsolicited email via what is called an "open relay." Bway.net uses a list provided by mail-abuse.org and automatically rejects any email messages originating from servers on that list. This is not the only way of propagating spam, but closing open relays goes a long way towards stopping the problem. This is not our only anti-spam effort, but one that we wanted clients to know about in case you are being denied mail due to a correspondent using a blacklisted server. Click here for more.

For More information about Spam:

Bway's Open Relay Spam Filtering

Setting Mail Filters in Pine

fraud.org

Fight Spam on the Internet!

Sheldon Brown's Anti-Spam Tips