Coned Index 64%, John, so not totally off higher end thinking, which sits mainly in paras 2 and 4.

Totally off topic, but....
4%] So today I posted a couple of jobs over at FM, and I used LinkedIn's job listing service. I plan to use others, including some of the job boards at FM sites like GigaOm, TechCrunch, and the like, but I was on LinkedIn for other reasons and decided to get it done there first.

84%] One of the features I like best about LinkedIn's job postings is the ability to send an email to your entire network about the job. Now, this can get a bit perilous - not everyone likes to get unsolicited emails. But on balance most folks seem OK with it, and I don't mind getting them, so I sent all my colleagues the job announcement. Now, I am not in the business of actively building out a LinkedIn network, but over the years more than 400 folks have asked me to join their network, and I generally do.

50%] Long story short, I sent out about 400 emails in one fell swoop, and a funny thing happened. About 20 mails bounced back with SpamArrest requests that I go to a URL and verify I was a human being. I don't mind doing this usually, but 20 in a row was a pain. Because I wanted to get word out about the job, however, I did it.

69%] Then I sat back and pondered. 20 emails, all from one single provider. It seems SpamArrest has truly cornered the market. That's 5% of my network using SpamArrest. I have never given a single thought to using such a service, but after this experience, I'm thinking again. My battellemedia.com address is overrun with spam. I'm pretty good at deleting it, but still....

• Posted by: Oracep
• January 11, 2007 7:49 PM

I use it for an old email address I have. I don't actively use it, but every once in a while, I get an email from someone that I haven't spoken with for years at that email address. It has worked well for me... I don't think I would use it on any of my primary email addresses though, for fear of annoying people.

• Posted by: dw
• January 11, 2007 8:46 PM

You could just link all the emails up through Gmail. They seem to do a great job catching spam. I get very little, and only once noticed an email put in spam that should not have been. Granted, it was kind of an important email, but looking there very few weeks is no problem, and that is once in about a year (I think) with them.

• Posted by: SorenG
• January 11, 2007 8:47 PM

I use spam arrest for one of my domains. It just gets ridiculous when over 99% of the email you receive is spam - it becomes far too easy to delete a legitimate email.

I may be moving over another email soon as it too seems to have gotten overrun with spam...

• Posted by: Mark Daoust
• January 11, 2007 10:15 PM

I signed up for SpamArrest in September 2003, and the service was erratic to say the least, they had many outages, sometimes for days at a time, and due to this I changed horses onto MailBlocks, which seemed to be a much better service and one of the best UI's at the time for webmail, it was a pleasure to use, and would consolidate several email accounts.

I was getting over 4,000 spam mails a day at one point.

Mailblocks got bought by AOL, and then swallowed whole, as they discontinued the Mailblocks service and integrated it into a free AOL service, after that I quit and went to Gmail.

It certainly worked well, but I'd only use these kinds of things for personal stuff, not work accounts. Some of our customers have this kind of protection at their ISP level, and they ask for each and every email to be verified, rather than you being put on a whitelist - now that is a pain!

• Posted by: Ricky P.
• January 11, 2007 11:56 PM

________________

THE LATEST SUCCESSFUL SPAM TACTICS ARE BRILLIANT!! ....and very informative. Which is why it is a good idea allow some of it. Of course, one should draw the line at MalWare.

But just analyze the newest successful strategies used by Spammers to deceive the filters - Also save the ones that 'fooled' sophisticaed you into clicking.

You can even collect the best of the best, then incorporate a few into any HONEST marketing endeavors.

One could always keep a PRIVATE, NON-Published email address that no one could guess and give to just trusted business partners and family.

• Posted by: ★ ★ SearcH EngineS WeB ★ ★
• January 12, 2007 1:28 AM

I always delete those verification requests - it's not the way forward.

• Posted by: dave
• January 12, 2007 5:31 AM

I use it before but it is useless to me.. there are some cases that spam mails are not filtered. Anything that recommends me of something new?

• Posted by: Ituloy AngSulong
• January 12, 2007 6:26 AM

I haven't used spam arrest. The settings are such that it keeps the spammers away and the one's who manage to spam are deleted or removed manually after a warning.

• Posted by: Windows hosting
• January 12, 2007 6:33 AM

In the past, I used Spamarrest. It worked well. However, I've switched to Gmail (it catches most spam) and eventually stopped using Spamarrest. It's an excellent product if you 1. are not willing to change your email address or 2. forward your email to a service like gmail.

• Posted by: Ken Leebow
• January 12, 2007 7:13 AM

Blogs are supposed to have a topic? Hmmm... maybe that's what I've been doing wrong :)

Technologically, I like this approach and whitelisting in general; it just feels more progressive, especially compared to blacklisting. From a business perspective, though, I'm not comfortable with the self-approval techniques. As an independent consultant, I consider sifting through mountains of email, however much of a pain, to be part of my commitment to customer service. If I make someone jump through hoops to email me, it seems to suggest that I'm somehow too good to waste my time on them.

• Posted by: Dr. Pete
• January 12, 2007 8:02 AM

Hey I hate that site, it is viral but vary annoying. I have had problems with spam and this summer I hacked a spammer now spam blockers are blocking me, so I changed my mail server from my host to gmail (google.com/a/) and it works fine with POP email like outlook express.

• Posted by: Joseph Slabaugh
• January 12, 2007 8:27 AM

Hi John

I enjoy reading your blog everyday!

Spamarrest is good. Personnally I use SureMail and I'm very happy with it. On top of getting less spam and those nasty virusses I really like the fact that they have redundant mail servers. This ensures me I will never lose any emails.

Been with them for 2 months now and I'm a happy camper!

David George.

• Posted by: David George
• January 12, 2007 8:32 AM

I'm one of the ones on your network who received your note, and I didn't mind getting mass mailed with it. The frequency of this sort of thing is pretty low, at least with my LinkedIn listing, so it's not a burden.

It was kinda nice, actually, since for a second I thought for some reason that John Battelle actually wanted *me* to apply for the job. Then, I was rapidly confused as to why you would've thought I would be qualified... {grin} Finally, I realized that it was a request for referrals, likely mass-mailed to lotsa folx. The LinkedIn mention on the note was not overt, so it took a minute for me to recognize the logistics that had been involved.

Similar to you, I've been self-filtering for a very long while. I like Spamarrest, though.

Good luck in your search for great candidates for your slots!

• Posted by: Silver
• January 12, 2007 11:04 AM

I've "solved" spam completely -- and even get important and spam-free e-mail sent to my CrackBerry. I wrote about it in ComputerWorld. (Note that SpamArrest -- which I love -- is part of my solution.)

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId;=9006779

Mike

• Posted by: Mike Elgan
• January 12, 2007 2:29 PM

it's the most annoying service john

think about it.

you are sending somebody an email of value and they send you back an email saying, you have to click on this link to get to me

i delete those messages. they are making me work harder to send them something of value.

it's selfish.

there are many better ways to beat spam, some of which are listed in these comments

• Posted by: fred
• January 12, 2007 3:15 PM

Spamarrest is great software and soes catch the majority of silly spammy type emails.

Getting spam emails should be a complement in a way; at least our sites are being brought to the attention of potential spammers! :)

• Posted by: Andy Redfern
• January 13, 2007 11:19 AM

John-

I've recently joined Boxbe.com, who is using a market based solution to eliminate unwanted emails.

Here's how it works:
if you want to send me an email and you are not on my approved list of senders, post a small amount of money to talk to me. We are using a challenge/response mechanism as an option, but the challenge/response technique may fail if the stakes get high enough. Unfortunately, it's not too hard to envision an inexpensive off-shore operation of spammers filling in captchas.

Boxbe's approach is to raise the cost of email from zero to some small amount of money set by the user. Most spammers won't ever pay as their business model dictates that there be little to no cost to send email.

I realize that a lot of the above commenters don't like the idea of responding to an email to prove that they are human, but if the New York Times is correct, most other methods for eliminating spam don't seem to be working very well.

While I've only just started working at Boxbe, I've been using the service for months without a hitch.

Cheers,
Randy Stewart
randy@boxbe.com

• Posted by: Randy Stewart
• January 15, 2007 4:27 PM