• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

COLD : Microsoft Opts-In Hotmail Users ... readon if don't want more spam...

Page 4 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Originally posted by: Password
3-4 days ago my Hotmail account was closed because they said that I had not signed in for the past 30 days. I use it everyday! They erased all my messages. I resigned back in after they closed it but the damage had been done. Anyone else have their acct closed like this?
Click to expand...


Yeah its happened to me, except they deleted my account and blocked the username for about a year. Interestingly enough about two days after I reregistered it I had about 100 messages in my inbox. Yeash. I thank them for that though since I switched to Yahoo, which was much better. Now Im at my own host 🙂
 
Thanks, great post, bump. I've used Hotmail for years.. Turns out they were sharing my info even though I never allowed them to. The spam increased about a year ago (I guess when they introduced these new "settings" with the checkmarks on by default!)
 
ElDonAntonio, so far the @ filter is working fine. I've received about 10 e-mails that were sent to my newly created AtFolder. They were all junk emails. Also, I applied the filter to my in-box and some legitimate e-mails like a confirmation from Amazon were sent to the AtFolder as well. I've already been filtering out some of the words you suggested. I've noticed a lot more junk lately but I'm not sure why.

For the critics of Microsoft, I think much of the spam is generated from companies that I have requested a freebie from, etc. My son used my e-mail address for a sports fantasy league he was in once, two years ago. I told him not to give out my address after that. You'd be surprised how much junk I get that has his name on it. I'm more careful now, but once that wave starts to build, it's impossible to stop it.
 
No offense Runciter, but I have had my hotmail account since the summer of '00 (after the breakin). I tried to get yahoo to stop hosting these porno spammers, but they think it should be up to you to filter the stuff. Eventually, I set my privacy settings to "exclusive" and it cut almost all spam to none. Bad part is that it now went to my junk folder, which you have to check to see if there is any legit e-mail so they won't delete it.

I want to give a big thanks to ElDonAntonio for his suggestion to put a @ in the name field of the custom filter section. I have received no more spam for two days. It may not be 100% effective, but it has at least cut it down a lot!
 
bigboxes, my pleasure 🙂
Spammers are getting smarter everyday though, and I suggest you add some more custom filters of your own, but I have personally found the @ filter to be the most effective by far.
 
Originally posted by: bigboxes
No offense Runciter, but I have had my hotmail account since the summer of '00 (after the breakin). I tried to get yahoo to stop hosting these porno spammers, but they think it should be up to you to filter the stuff. Eventually, I set my privacy settings to "exclusive" and it cut almost all spam to none. Bad part is that it now went to my junk folder, which you have to check to see if there is any legit e-mail so they won't delete it.

I want to give a big thanks to ElDonAntonio for his suggestion to put a @ in the name field of the custom filter section. I have received no more spam for two days. It may not be 100% effective, but it has at least cut it down a lot!
Click to expand...

Yeah, ElDonAntonio's @ filter can filter a lot of spam, but I notice that it also filter out legit mails.
Try creating the @ filter rule and then click "Apply Filter", and you can check what and how many legit mails got sent to the trash folder.
Anyone got any other good idea?

 
mralex, I guess it depends what kind of mail you receive in your inbox. If you receive a lot of mail from your friends and family, then normally they should have entered their respective names and they will not be filtered out.
However as somebody noted, some legit mail from amazon.com and other companies may get filtered out because they often do not include a name. In these cases, just create a few filters with higher priority that state for example that if "amazon.com" is found in the adress, direct the message to the inbox. I used that technique too because I had subscribed to WebCourrier newsletters and wanted them all in my inbox.

I guess there's no magic 100% effective technique, the best way is to look at the kind of legit mail you receive and the kind of spam mail, and find the most notable difference between the two, then create a filter based on that difference.
 
Originally posted by: ElDonAntonio
mralex, I guess it depends what kind of mail you receive in your inbox. If you receive a lot of mail from your friends and family, then normally they should have entered their respective names and they will not be filtered out.
However as somebody noted, some legit mail from amazon.com and other companies may get filtered out because they often do not include a name. In these cases, just create a few filters with higher priority that state for example that if "amazon.com" is found in the adress, direct the message to the inbox. I used that technique too because I had subscribed to WebCourrier newsletters and wanted them all in my inbox.

I guess there's no magic 100% effective technique, the best way is to look at the kind of legit mail you receive and the kind of spam mail, and find the most notable difference between the two, then create a filter based on that difference.
Click to expand...

Thanks, ElDonAntonio!!!
Yeah, there is quite a few companies (like you mentioned, amazon.com and other such as discovercard.com, paypal.com, etc) use their email addresses in the name field.
Actually, I was doing exactly what you said in the past (creating higher priority rule to save those senders), but the problem is you need to bear in mind that you are using the @ rule, otherwise you might miss something you just sign up.
One time, I sign up for something and was waiting for the confirmation email, but I just forgot that I have the @ rule, so I wasted 15 mins sitting there and hitting the reload button.
I mean the @ rule is a great rule, but remind yourself when you sign up for something new.
Also, I notice that filtering out mails, whose subjects contain your mail account's username (like "someone" in "someone@somewhere.com" also helps quite a lot.

 
Originally posted by: BobSnob
This thread is nonsense. I set those privacy options a long time ago and they're still set. What probably happens is (and many web sites do this) is that they don't ask you these questions when you sign up. You have to then go in and alter your profile.

Remember this people, hotmail is free (the basic service anyway) so why knock it? Too much spam? Go get another account elsewhere.
Click to expand...


You completely missed the point.
These 3 options at the bottom of Personal Profile have *just been created*. They were not there "a long time ago" as you say. There were, and still are, other options there a long time, but not these. The "share my email address" one is the real killer.
 
I have a feeling that some of you don't understand the significance of this. Your hotmail account that you've had for X years now, and maintained a relatively spam-free environment in, is now toast. It doesn't matter if you change the check box anymore, because the list has already been sold and the damage is done. You can't remove yourself from a list that's already been sold.

The only option is to either A) live with the huge increase of spam straight into your inbox or B) abandon your account and start a new one while making sure to uncheck those options before it's finished being created.

My old account went from about 1-2 spam emails a day to about 15. I chose to dump it.
 
Thanks for the heads up. I was wondering where all the spam was coming from.

BTW, that got you a 10.
 
straubs, I honestly don't really think that these boxes are a main source of spam. Well according to Microsoft, everyone had to agree at Hotmail's signup to share his or her info with .NET partners anyway. They claim that they're just showing you this with these boxes.

In all cases, you can very well receive tons of spam with these boxes unchecked and without having used your address. Think about it: you're a spammer, and you want to reach the maximum number of persons. You can guess without knowing for sure that if you send mail to bill@hotmail.com up to bill5489043@hotmail.com, it'll reach a lot of people. So the more predictable your Hotmail address is, the most likely you'll receive spam. Try creating a really predictable address (like bob2300@hotmail.com) and another one very unpredictable (something like dhausysto@hotmail.com). I can garantee your unpredictable adress will be 100% spam free for some time (until you or MS shares that address).
 
A good way to at least reduce significantly the amount of spam you're getting is
to use the program SpamKiller. McAffee now sells this program (used to be independent;
they bought it).

Anyway, this program does a very good job of filtering out spam messages. Better yet,
it allows you to send an "error" message in response to every spam message
that tells the sender that your address doesn't exist and is undeliverable. After a while,
you will find your address being removed from a lot of lists on this basis.

Not all lists...you are basically NEVER going to get to a spam free state. But at least
the amount of spam goes down noticably.

I don't know if SpamKiller works with free email services like Hotmail, though.

Kwad
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top