The exact methods and criteria for detecting spam are confidential--if we announced exactly how we detect spam the spammers would have an easier time getting their email past our service and into your mailbox. However, a number of methods are used including phrases, references to known spammers, references to websites that are promoted with spam, email sent through known open relays, country-of-origin, etc. You may customize our spam detection to your own needs by specifying certain countries from which all email should be rejected, specify addresses that should always be accepted (whitelist), addresses that should always be rejected (blacklist), and providing a list of words that you never want to see in your incoming email.

PrismEmail recognizes different types of spam and lets you choose whether or not you want them filtered. We put spam into one of the following categories: 1) Bayesian (Statistical), 2) Known spam source. 3) Known spam-promoted site. 4) Known spam contact information. 5) Probable spam. 6) Known adult site. 7) Probable adult spam. 8) Probable virus/worm. You may choose which filters are enabled or disabled depending on how aggresively you want to filter spam. The more filters you enable, the more spam will be stopped. Bayesian filtering is the most effective and can achieve 99.5% effectiveness.

Yes. PrismEmail allows you to configure which countries you want to receive email from and which you don't. For example, a large amount of spam originates from South Korea. If you don't know anyone that is going to send you email from that country you might choose to block the entire country of South Korea. China, Malaysia, India, and Taiwan are other countries that are common sources of spam which can often be completely blocked if you don't expect to receive any legitimate email from those countries.

Yes. PrismEmail allows you to configure which character sets you wish to accept and which you wish to reject. For example, it is becoming more common to receive spam that looks like complete garbage. Often this isn't garbage but rather an email written in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. If you don't know how to read these languages or don't know anyone who would send you email in those languages, you can choose to reject all email that is written in that character set.

Yes. PrismEmail allows you to create both blacklists and whitelists. A blacklist is a list of email addresses from which any email will be rejected. This is mostly useful for blocking people you don't want to hear from. A whitelist is a list of email addresses from which any email is accepted, even if it would otherwise be discarded as spam. It can be a good idea to enter the email addresses of your close friends and family into your whitelist so that none of their email is ever rejected, even if the email contains references to websites or phrases that would normally be considered spam.

Yes. PrismEmail allows you to create custom keyword filters. For example, if you never want to receive an email about "global warming," you can just create a filter that contains the words "global warming". Thereafter, any email with both those words will be rejected.

There is no limit to the number of blacklist, whitelist, and keyword filters you may add. You may add as many or as few as you like.

While it shouldn't happen often, it is possible that a legitimate email could be misidentified as spam. This is known as a "false positive." To deal with this possibility, once per night our server will send you an email that lists all the spam that was blocked in the previous 24 hours. For each email you'll be notified of the country of origin, subject, and size of the email. If it appears to you to be valid email you can click on a provided link so that the email will be downloaded to your POP3 program the next time you check email. The advantage is you'll receive just one summary email per day with a list of all the spam that was filtered rather than receiving the spam throughout the day.

Yes. You can either review the nightly spam summary message described in the previous paragraph or, if you want to review the spam right away, you can login to this website. You will be able to view all spam that has been filtered right up-to-the-minute. It is often useful to view potential spam in this fashion rather than downloading it since downloading and opening spam messages can often display vulgar images or let the spammer know you opened their email. If you view the filtered spam via our website, all such "mailbugs" are avoided.