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Risks of Partisan Spam Filtering?
Mike1024 asks: "Pete Klammer reported in RISKS 23.95 about spam filtering software filtering political e-mails - including Postini blocking certain anti-Schwarzenegger URLs and Comcast blocking e-mails mentioning afterdowningstreet.org. This could be caused by malicious action, misreporting of spam, 'joe jobs', or actual spamming. With many people using their ISP's default settings, and manual spam filtering being impractical for many users, what can be done to avoid giving ISPs and anti-spam companies extensive, fully automated censorship abilities?"
The spam system I use is the challenge/response type. You get told you can ask for access to my mailbox and I can decide to allow it.
As for other automated systems like Postini, which we use at work it all comes down to the content. A lot of time configuration errors will creep in as well like the time all mail a guy named Dick H... was being deleted without notice! You can guess why.
PostIni has actually blocked some political mail to me and I can give you a few hints.
Certain political emails contain verbage that gets labeled as porn or hate speech. That second category is so broad and abused that companies will throw about anything that might hint of insensitivity under it just to keep themseleves safe.
The second category they got caught by? Money. There is a $$$ category that attempts to weed out money requests and the like.
Do I care one way or another? No, I particulary did not like how the government excluded the rules of spam from acting on elected officials and I really couldn't care less about any unsolicited spam from either aisle.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You would be misinformed. Anything having to do with guns or weapons is a commonly blocked category.
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