The End of Spam

Ah, spam. I actually remember the day that the first spam was sent out, and the roar of protest that vibrated across the internet. How DARE they abuse our wonderful web of interconnectivity with this capitalism! Sheesh!

Well, I wish we roared louder. Because it didn't matter and we were only seeing the start of a plague upon the internet.

I've tried a lot of things to combat the deluge of spam and nothing really worked. Having had at least one email address that predates the existence of spam, I never had a chance (or a reason!) to protect myself - and that one address gets perhaps hundreds of spam, or unsolicited commercial email, each day. So, when Cody, my computer technician, suggested that I try a different spam fighting product, I was skeptical. But the result: as close to the end of spam as I've ever been.

Cloudmark uses a community model to fight spam. You subscribe and it installs a little toolbar on your email client. Based on what other people have already reported as spam, it filters it out and dumps it in a folder. You can review the spam and make sure anything that is unfairly blocked is removed from the community database by simply clicking Unblock. If a spam does find its way to your inbox, you click Block Spam and it is reported. It also let's you report things that are fraudulent in nature.

On the surface, Cloudmark does what many others claim to do. But what sets it apart is this: it is incredibly, almost phenomenally accurate. I haven't had more than one or two spams in the last month. It has CAUGHT 9,885 spam messages out of 16,115 in my account alone, in a month!! I can count on one hand the times it has caught the wrong thing - and on the other hand, the spam I've had to report myself.

The community reporting system is such that if you report something that you actually signed up for - it notices and your trustworthiness ranking as a spam reporter drops. If you accurately report real spam and better yet, are the first to note it, your ranking goes up. This encourages the accuracy and it's fun to check the little pop up that tells you your rankings, how much money you've saved by not manually filtering spam, and so on. It makes it easy to justify the cost of the software, only $39.95 per year. The only down side I saw was that it only works in Outlook or Outlook Express, right now.

Best of all, it is completely unobtrusive - it just works, fast and silently - doesn't break, lock up the mail account or cause me any mischief. It might not really be the end of the spam, but for me, Cloudmark is the next best thing!

© 2005 All Rights Reserved

###

Eileen Parzek is an award winning graphic designer and writer providing both digital and print graphic design and web design services. Always found at the intersection of information, creativity and technology, her business, SOHO It Goes! Business Design Studio (www.sohoitgoes.com) helps small businesses make a big impression.