This Spam Guide introduces you to spam

Handling Spam

Castles Anti-Spam Policy

Castles Information Network strictly prohibits site partners and/or end-users from engaging in illegal emailing activities, such as transmission of unsolicited or unauthorized advertisements, promotional materials, "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," or other forms of solicitation.

Failure to comply with current Terms and Conditions, and/or End-User Agreement may result in the termination of your Control Center or email account.

Spam Guide

This Spam Guide will introduce you to spam, enabling you to identify spam, determine the appropriate course of actions, and effectively handle spam complaints. If you are looking for instructions on how to use our SpamShield Pro, please check our use guide.

1. What is spam?

Taken from http://spam.abuse.net:

Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send—most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.

There are two main types of spam, and they have different effects on Internet users. Cancelable Usenet spam is a single message sent to 20 or more Usenet newsgroups. (Through long experience, Usenet users have found that any message posted to so many newsgroups is often not relevant to most or all of them.) Usenet spam is aimed at "lurkers," people who read newsgroups but rarely or never post and give their address away. Usenet spam robs users of the utility of the newsgroups by overwhelming them with a barrage of advertising or other irrelevant posts. Furthermore, Usenet spam subverts the ability of system administrators and owners to manage the topics they accept on their systems.

Email spam targets individual users with direct mail messages. Email spam lists are often created by scanning Usenet postings, stealing Internet mailing lists, or searching the Web for addresses. Email spams typically cost users money out-of-pocket to receive. Many people—those with measured phone service—read or receive their mail while the meter is running, so to speak. Spam costs them additional money. On top of that, it costs money for ISPs and online services to transmit spam, and these costs are transmitted directly to subscribers.

In essence, spam is the transmission of unsolicited bulk email (UBE), unsolicited commercial email (UCE), or commercial postings to inappropriate newsgroups.

For a spam glossary, please see http://www.turnstep.com/Spambot/glossary.html

A. Why do spammers send spam and why is spam bad?

Spammers send spam as a form of free advertising, which is illegal in most cases. It is similar to a telemarketer calling you collect. No other kind of advertising costs the advertiser so little and the recipient so much. It can cost the recipient additional time and money spent on the Internet to view and/or delete spam. The recipients are not the only victims—ISPs are also taken advantage of. Many ISPs promote their free trial offers to the public, which prompts spammers to 'sign-up' and give the free service a try. The spammer then uses this opportunity to send spam to numerous email addresses, both valid and invalid ones. Then they abandon the trial account, forcing the provider to rectify spam complaints and monitor spam/abuse issues.

B. How did you get on their email list?

If you do any of the following, there is a good chance you can end up on a spammer's email list:

Post on an online bulletin board

Post in a Usenet newsgroup

Participate in chat rooms

Including your email address in an online service's member directory

Large email providers such as Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail hold user accounts that have common usernames, such as 'Smith,' 'Dave,' 'webmaster,' 'info,' etc.

2. What can you do about spam?

A. What you can do:

If you can identify the source of the spam, contact the spammer's ISP or email service provider.

B. What not to do:

Do not respond to removal instructions. Responding to any REMOVAL instructions pose more problems than resolutions

Threaten the spammer with violence or vandalism

Mailbomb the site where the spammer is from

Mailbomb the alleged spammer, who may be an innocent third party

Ping-storm or SYN-flood the site

Hack into their site

Do not use spam to fight spam

C. How to minimize spam:

Upgrade your service to a package that include our SpamShield Pro or Total Protection
Filter out unwanted emails (see items #4, 5, and 6)

Simply delete unwanted emails

Use one email account for personal use and another one for commercial use

3. How to block spam with your Castles.com email account:

Our Personal and Business Mail accounts come with our SpamShield Pro solution to help you control spam.

Use our SpamShield Pro feature to direct mail that is spam to your Trash or Spam folders. You must first log in to your Castles.com email account.

Click Options on the main navigation bar

Click the SpamShield Pro link

Turn SpamShield Pro On
Select any other appropriate option
Click Save

4. How to set your Castles.com email filter:

Users of SpamShield Lite may want to add additional rules:
Again, you must first log in to your account before proceeding.

Click Options on the main navigation bar

Click the Email Rules link; your current list of filters will appear

Click Add Filter

Set the conditions for the filter by completing the If-Then statement

(Optional) Click Match Case to enforce case sensitivity; if the box is unchecked, the filter will match the phrase regardless of what case the text is