Anti-SPAM Services

Keeping unsolicited commercial e-mail out of your inbox

Every one loves e-mail, but no one likes to get unsolicited e-mail about get-rich-quick schemes, Viagra, or how to get various parts of their body enlarged.

This type of e-mail is referred to as "unsolicited commercial e-mail" (UCE) or "SPAM" (a reference to an old Monty Python comedy routine).  NWD Hosting offers a basic anti-spam package called Spam Assassin with every hosting account.

Spam Assassin can work in one of two different modes, depending on the options selected from your web hosting control panel.  By design, the default setting is to simply tag the subject line of suspicious e-mails with the words "SPAM".  Using the built-in rules processing in your e-mail client, you can then filter these messages to automatically be deleted, or to be placed in a special folder for later review.

Spam Assassin can also be configured to delete e-mails that it thinks are SPAM, rather than delivering them to your mailbox.  More information about Spam Assassin can be found in either your web hosting guide, or in the technical support section of our web site.

Spam Assassin works well for many people, and for those who want a more comprehensive solution, we offer a more sophisticated anti-spam product called Postini.  Postini functions similarly to Spam Assassin, and adds several very useful features:

• An individualized control panel, with granular filters that control the sensitivity of the Postini filters to five types of unsolicited e-mail:
• Bulk e-mail
• Get rich quick
• Sexually explicit messages
• Special offers
• Racially insensitive messages
• Anti-spam settings can be made globally for a particular company or domain, and then at the individual user level.
• Increases the amount of bandwidth available to your account, since spam e-mails are stopped at Postini's servers before they ever get to the servers at NWD Hosting, helping to conserve bandwidth.

By comparison, SpamAssassin treats all unsolicited e-mail similarly without any regard to content.

Postini goes even further by integrating anti-virus scanning into the spam filtering process.  This adds another layer of protection to the anti-virus software that we use on our servers, and to the anti-virus software that you run on your desktop.

Finally, Postini also allows e-mail to rerouted to your cell phone or other wireless device through the use of content filters that can check an message for a particular sender, or even by other message characteristics such as urgency.  These rules can be further enhanced through the use of restrictions on when messages should be forwarded based on either the day or the time of day.

More detailed information about Postini is available below, and in the technical support section of our web site.

• Postini brochure
• Question & Answer with Gartner on SPAM Solutions

Click here to see Frequently Asked Questions & answers about setting up a web hosting account with NWD Hosting.

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