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?"

Comments

It wasn't that long ago...

[krewemaynard]

...that folks were clamoring for ISPs to do MORE to prevent spam. Now they're doing more, and we're wondering if it's too much and they should do less. decicive bunch, aren't we?

It's only email that gets filtered like this

[badfish99]

Suppose I set up a service described like this:
All your (snail) mail gets delivered to me. I will read it, and throw away anything that looks like junk, and then send the good stuff on to you. I won't tell you what I've thrown away, or what criteria I use.

You wouldn't sign up for that, would you? So why do people put up with third-party spam filters that do the same thing? I know that spam is a big problem, but everyone ought to take control over their own communications. It's one thing for me to decide to throw some email away unread; it's quite a different thing to give someone else that power over me.

Nothing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spam filtering is by its very nature censorship. You're agreeing to have your incoming email censored so you don't have to deal with spam. If you don't like the terms of that, well, it's up to you. Set up your own mail server and customize the spam settings how you see fit. Or even find a decent host with SpamAssassin and tweak that to your liking. Or just find an ISP/mail host with no spam filtering, and handle it on your client with Bayesian training.

Tag spams, don't drop them

[Motherfucking Shit]

If you're worried that you're missing emails of any sort (politics is a red herring as far as I'm concerned), go with an email provider that tags messages instead of deleting them. This is a simple configuration in SpamAssassin, and any competent mailhost will set it up on a user-configurable basis. I'm not saying that ISPs will be so kind as to offer this option, but if you can afford it, you've probably already got your own domain at a webhost somewhere.

The webhosting company I use for my personal stuff does this (not going to mention names, because I don't want this to sound like a plug). I can set up unlimited POPs and forwarders, and adjust the SpamAssassin settings on each one; not only the scoring gestalts, but also whether messages that are considered spam get deleted, or simply have a [SPAM] tag added in the subject line.

I opt for the tagging. This means that I get all of the email, but with a single filter rule on my mail client (i.e. matching "[SPAM]" in the subject header), I can sort all the questionable stuff to a "Junk" folder and go through it later.

If your ISP drops or deletes spam mail, set your mail up elsewhere, or bitch heavily to your ISP requesting that your spam be tagged instead of nuked. I hate spam as much as the next guy, but there's no reason that any ISP should be risking false positives and having their customers lose legit email.