Spam Filtering FAQ

The term "spam" most often refers to unsolicited commercial email.  This may come in the form of an advertisement from a company you haven't done business with, or a company who isn't honoring your preference not to receive advertising.  Misleading or harmful messages, such as scams, can also be considered spam.

If an advertiser does not give you the ability to stop advertising they can be considered a "spammer". Generally, opt-out lists are considered spam; those who email you advertising until you tell them to stop. Opt-in lists, which first ask your permission, are a respectable form of email advertising.

The reason you receive "spam" is because a spammer has obtained or guessed your email address. Here are some common ways spammers obtain your address:

• A company or organization you've done business with has distributed it.
• Your address is posted in a public space, such as a website or forum.
• A friend sent you an e-card from a website which collects addresses.
• You've picked an email address that is easy to guess, such as a common name or dictionary word.
  

Spammers also try to confirm your address is still good once they have it, so:

• Make it a practice never to respond to a suspicious message. If you request to be removed from a spammers list, it only confirms you received their message.
  
• Avoid replying to strangers asking "is this still your email address?".

To avoid receiving spam, keep your email address as private as possible. Treat it like your home address, giving it only to respectable businesses or people you trust.

We never sell or share your information or email address with anyone.

Our SpamControl service is free to Whidbey Telecom Internet & Broadband customers! Visit Webmail, then select "Settings" to change your filtering settings.

We have a 2 stage filtering process; the first stage protects our services, the second is optional and further protects our customers.

Service Protection

We reject the following email, no matter to whom it is addressed:

• From organizations we have caught sending inordinate amounts of undeliverable or unsolicited email.
• Any provider listed on the blacklist at Spamhaus
  
• Messages without a valid "From:" address.
• Email which fails an SPF check.
  

Spam Filtering (SpamControl)

Our industry leading filter gives each message a score based on the look and feel of its content. For example, a normal message might score around 0.1, while spam often scores over 3.5.

When you activate SpamControl, you pick a threshold, and any message which scores higher than that is put into a Junk Mailbox on our server. We recommend a threshold of 4.5 or lower.

You also have a "Trusted Senders" list, which allows you to choose which email addresses are never filtered. With our unique "AutoTrust" feature, anyone you send email to will be automatically trusted.

When you have SpamControl turned on, you can receive an optional daily Junkmail Report, giving you a chance to see what we filtered the previous day and allowing you to rescue the rare legitimate message.

The message score is obtained by adding the points assigned by hundreds of tests. Here are some examples of some simple tests:

• A blank "To:" field.
• The word "buy" is mentioned many times.
• There are a lot of exclamation points, stars, or other attention-grabbers.
• It tells you that you've won a million dollars in a foreign country.
  

If you see legitimate email marked as spam, the most common reason is that the sender used enough spam-like techniques to exceed your threshold. You should add any important contacts to your Trusted Senders list, which will prevent them from ever being filtered.

Spam filtering does not affect mail sent between Whidbey Telecom Internet & Broadband customers.

We do not filter email sent by common, well known and trusted businesses, even if it contains advertising.

Any email that scores higher than your threshold will be saved into your Junk folder on our system.  There is no limit to the amount of filtered email that can be stored, and it does not count against your mailbox usage.  However messages in the Junk folder that are older than ten days are deleted automatically.

There are 2 ways to view and retrieve messages in your Junk Mailbox:

The first is through the Web Mail system.  Once logged in, you can click the "Junk" folder to see what's stored. You can also click a "Rescue" button to automatically have the author added to your Trusted Senders list.

Alternatively, you can use IMAP in your email program.  IMAP gives you access to all of your folders on our system, including Junk, and allows you to access email from anywhere instead of one computer.

Add the sender to your Trusted Senders list and the message will be rescued.  Please see the Email Options page.

See the section "How does the Whidbey Telecom Internet & Broadband spam filter work?" for a list of what we block. If you receive a notice that your email could not be delivered, the error message will describe why. 

Please forward the message you received, complete with headers, to support@whidbey.net so we can investigate the matter.

Please contact our Technical Support and we will assist you as soon as possible.