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Also, a lot of people I suspect still have old email software (Outlook Express anyone?) which might not even have spam filters set up. It is sad because I thin

Also, a lot of people I suspect still have old email software (Outlook Express anyone?) which might not even have spam filters set up. It is sad because I think it isn't just gullible people generally, but those who did not grow up with computers and won't understand that "This is your bank informing you of a security breach" is bogus are unfairly hit. Other thing is that the cost of sending massive numbers of emails is basically nothing so why not? If only 100 people out of an email list of 100M click through, that might pay you for this month.

jaywalk 5y ago
Who uses spam filtering in their email client anymore? That's done at the server level.
- BenjiWiebe 5y ago
  I do, on my own domain, because it's easier to train the filter within the client, but mainly because that client is the only place I access that email account.
- ColinWright 5y ago
  FWIW, every server-level spam filter I'm used has had so many false positives it's caused me significant problems. Also FWIW, people to whom I send email regularly tell me that their email systems mis-classify my emails as spam. I've spoken with several networking specialists, and they all shrug their shoulders and say: "It's the server level spam filtering ... it's not very good." GMail in particular is known to be aggressively negative towards email originating from anywhere other than another GMail account. So in answer to your no doubt intended to be rhetorical question, I use spam filtering in my email system, not on the server.
  - mitchdoogle 5y ago
    Just as a counterpoint, my company uses Google Workspace for email and we receive a good deal of spam. Been using it a couple years now and it's been very good at identifying spam, with very few false positives.
    - ColinWright 5y ago
      (I've up-voted you ... our contexts are different, our experiences are different, the results are different, and it's important people get all points of view). I have/work with three different companies ... two of them use Google based email systems, one (my own) does the filtering "in house". One of the G-based systems performs well, the other has multiple false positives every day. I'm sure it performs well for the majority of people ... it's likely that the emails I send and receive are atypical, and Google performs badly because they are not "normal". Everyone has to decide where that trade-off lies. In my context, I simply cannot trust Google, or any other server-side filtering, for important email. As others have said, it simply means the spam folder is a second inbox. As I say to my clients about so many things: take advice, understand the trade-offs, make a decision, deal with the consequences.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    > GMail in particular is known to be aggressively negative towards email originating from anywhere other than another GMail account. This just isn't correct. Gmail does indeed have a HUGE market share at around 20-30% depending on source but with every business using mail for notification and business communication you will note that an even smaller minority of mail comes from other gmail accounts. If Gmail actually worked like that it would have ceased to work entirely and lost most of its users. If I understand correctly the actual issue is all the major players vs very small players like people running their own server. In that scenario the users whether it be on yahoo, google, msn what have you get 99.999% of their intended email while the person running their own email server will have a much larger miss rate a bigger problem and one that can't be solved on the client side at all. From the perspective of the end user who is neither aware nor concerned about small servers issues server side filtering works very well. Looking at my spam folder it seems to be filled not with nigerian scams which don't even make it to my spam folder but with emails from people who have send me emails which have some degree of legitimacy but which I have repeatedly deleted unread like political emails requesting contributions. From my perspective it works great.
  - chefkoch 5y ago
    As someone who up until recently managed the mail system and antispam for a business processing ~250k mails a das, false positives are an outlier. We had a ticket because of this perhabs once a week and most of the time it was because of poorly setup Mailservers in the other end. Server side filtering works quite well, most of the spam comes from hijacked leggid accounts that are burned quite quickly.
    - ColinWright 5y ago
      Great, I'm genuinely pleased to hear that your experience of server-side filters is a positive one. Mine is negative. The fact that you have a positive experience does not refute that mine is negative. Please: I've experimented with this for over two decades, and continue to do so. I know that lots of people say that server-side filtering is fine. My direct personal experience is that for me it is not fine, including the spam filtering provided by Google's email service. I do not deny that for other people it's fine, I'm just saying ... don't deny my experience.
      - throwawayvibes 5y ago
        Never had much of a problem with Gmail's filter. An odd newsletter end up in spam once every while. How does your issue manifest?
        goodevans 5y ago
        It's his Nigerian Prince Scam How-To newsletter, goes missing every week!
        ColinWright 5y ago
        > How does your issue manifest? I regularly have emails to my GMail from colleagues end up in the spam folder. Perhaps as many as 5 or 10 per week, enough that I have to trawl through the spam folder every few days to make sure I've not missed something important. Similarly, reasonably often when people reply to me, often after being prompted with a second email, or even a phone call, people tell me that emails from my "other" ISP to their GMail provided mailboxes have ended up in the spam folder. It happens in waves ... it can be fine for months, and I start to think it's all good and I can trust it, and then there's a spate of emails going to spam when they really shouldn't. It's simply unreliable. So for incoming email I do my own filtering. I can do nothing about my outgoing emails ending up in someone else's GMail spam folder except to be aware that it happens, and to keep track of when I'm expecting a reply. With some colleagues I've gone to a "positive acknowledge" system to preempt what have been expensive problems in the past.

jaywalk 5y ago

Who uses spam filtering in their email client anymore? That's done at the server level.

BenjiWiebe 5y ago
I do, on my own domain, because it's easier to train the filter within the client, but mainly because that client is the only place I access that email account.
ColinWright 5y ago
FWIW, every server-level spam filter I'm used has had so many false positives it's caused me significant problems. Also FWIW, people to whom I send email regularly tell me that their email systems mis-classify my emails as spam. I've spoken with several networking specialists, and they all shrug their shoulders and say: "It's the server level spam filtering ... it's not very good." GMail in particular is known to be aggressively negative towards email originating from anywhere other than another GMail account. So in answer to your no doubt intended to be rhetorical question, I use spam filtering in my email system, not on the server.
- mitchdoogle 5y ago
  Just as a counterpoint, my company uses Google Workspace for email and we receive a good deal of spam. Been using it a couple years now and it's been very good at identifying spam, with very few false positives.
  - ColinWright 5y ago
    (I've up-voted you ... our contexts are different, our experiences are different, the results are different, and it's important people get all points of view). I have/work with three different companies ... two of them use Google based email systems, one (my own) does the filtering "in house". One of the G-based systems performs well, the other has multiple false positives every day. I'm sure it performs well for the majority of people ... it's likely that the emails I send and receive are atypical, and Google performs badly because they are not "normal". Everyone has to decide where that trade-off lies. In my context, I simply cannot trust Google, or any other server-side filtering, for important email. As others have said, it simply means the spam folder is a second inbox. As I say to my clients about so many things: take advice, understand the trade-offs, make a decision, deal with the consequences.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  > GMail in particular is known to be aggressively negative towards email originating from anywhere other than another GMail account. This just isn't correct. Gmail does indeed have a HUGE market share at around 20-30% depending on source but with every business using mail for notification and business communication you will note that an even smaller minority of mail comes from other gmail accounts. If Gmail actually worked like that it would have ceased to work entirely and lost most of its users. If I understand correctly the actual issue is all the major players vs very small players like people running their own server. In that scenario the users whether it be on yahoo, google, msn what have you get 99.999% of their intended email while the person running their own email server will have a much larger miss rate a bigger problem and one that can't be solved on the client side at all. From the perspective of the end user who is neither aware nor concerned about small servers issues server side filtering works very well. Looking at my spam folder it seems to be filled not with nigerian scams which don't even make it to my spam folder but with emails from people who have send me emails which have some degree of legitimacy but which I have repeatedly deleted unread like political emails requesting contributions. From my perspective it works great.
- chefkoch 5y ago
  As someone who up until recently managed the mail system and antispam for a business processing ~250k mails a das, false positives are an outlier. We had a ticket because of this perhabs once a week and most of the time it was because of poorly setup Mailservers in the other end. Server side filtering works quite well, most of the spam comes from hijacked leggid accounts that are burned quite quickly.
  - ColinWright 5y ago
    Great, I'm genuinely pleased to hear that your experience of server-side filters is a positive one. Mine is negative. The fact that you have a positive experience does not refute that mine is negative. Please: I've experimented with this for over two decades, and continue to do so. I know that lots of people say that server-side filtering is fine. My direct personal experience is that for me it is not fine, including the spam filtering provided by Google's email service. I do not deny that for other people it's fine, I'm just saying ... don't deny my experience.
    - throwawayvibes 5y ago
      Never had much of a problem with Gmail's filter. An odd newsletter end up in spam once every while. How does your issue manifest?
      - goodevans 5y ago
        It's his Nigerian Prince Scam How-To newsletter, goes missing every week!
      - ColinWright 5y ago
        > How does your issue manifest? I regularly have emails to my GMail from colleagues end up in the spam folder. Perhaps as many as 5 or 10 per week, enough that I have to trawl through the spam folder every few days to make sure I've not missed something important. Similarly, reasonably often when people reply to me, often after being prompted with a second email, or even a phone call, people tell me that emails from my "other" ISP to their GMail provided mailboxes have ended up in the spam folder. It happens in waves ... it can be fine for months, and I start to think it's all good and I can trust it, and then there's a spate of emails going to spam when they really shouldn't. It's simply unreliable. So for incoming email I do my own filtering. I can do nothing about my outgoing emails ending up in someone else's GMail spam folder except to be aware that it happens, and to keep track of when I'm expecting a reply. With some colleagues I've gone to a "positive acknowledge" system to preempt what have been expensive problems in the past.