Unwanted Messages Getting in the Way?

September 25th, 2007 at 7:07 am

What about the unwanted tagged advertisement people get when I send them email?

September 25th, 2007 at 7:26 am

This feature somewhat inadequate.

– Spammers randomize their email addresses.
– Sometimes when you mark an item as Spam, it contains your personal email address that ends up in the Blocked Addresses list.
– Block email addresses is not really useful, we should be able to block particular message content.

September 25th, 2007 at 7:26 am

If you’re using the free version of Yahoo I don’t believe you can get rid of them. If you use the pay version they are deleted.

September 25th, 2007 at 7:32 am

How about allowing only those messages that match
an address in your address book. Put the rest in spam. If you want to add a spam address to your address book it will be your option.

September 25th, 2007 at 7:35 am

What about a way to toggle folders from show unread to show total, like in outlook? I keep pending orders emails in a folder, but don’t know how many I have without opening the folder. I like to keep (0 unread) in my firefox tab so i can tell when one arrives.

As for blocking spam, I’ve noticed it doesn’t work at all when checking mail from POP3 addresses.

September 25th, 2007 at 9:19 am

I agree with Peter. Especially since they randomize their addresses, at least 5000 blocked email addresses should be allowed.

However, either way, Yahoo! Mail (Beta still…) has been doign a good job of catching Spam and placing in the folder. There should be a content search filter to eliminate certain emails with certain keywords in the subjects.

September 25th, 2007 at 9:34 am

I totally agree with Peter and Adam…lets block only keywords…since many of these spam messages come from different sender, with a slightly different wording they do contain the same word/words in the subject..ie, mortgage, approved,won, etc. There should also be a seperate setting by yahoo for those emails that we all recognize as “Nigerian Type Scams”..These people are committing crimes and Yahoo should be forwarding everyone of these for investigations. Might not catch them all but I am sure we could catch some of them

September 25th, 2007 at 9:50 am

While I agree that Yahoo is doing a great job filtering spam, my issue is what still gets in. This solution does not address this because of the randomizing of addresses.

Yahoo says that as we mark spam they will be able to see what we don’t want and we should see a reduction in those types of emails. That has not been my experience. I have been marking emails with pornographic content as spam for over a month and have noticed no reduction at all.

I would like to see some solutions to this problem as the senders are so slick in spelling and keeping content at a minimum that it makes it difficult to use the filter options.

Maybe these could be marked differently then yahoo could possibly find a pattern.

September 25th, 2007 at 9:57 am

I’ve been a beta user for quite a while now and I really do find it superior EXCEPT in the spam aspect. I’ve gotten way more since switching to Beta.

Just one girl’s opinion.

September 25th, 2007 at 10:22 am

Daily I get upwards to 30 or more spam, some really crude porn. Daily I click each one into spam. Never helps. I will get the same ones continuously even though I put them into the spam folder.

September 25th, 2007 at 10:27 am

I think email needs to remain relatively easy, otherwise people can go out and buy programs that have choices such as what Ellen, Laurie, dubya and Dave. If you check your email often you should be able to keep it under control. I like Yahoo email (and mine is free) and find it really easy to use and maintain. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist!

September 25th, 2007 at 11:10 am

I want filtering by content keywords. It would also be useful to be able to block selected IP addresses or blocks of IP addresses. Lastly, the ability to block messages where the entire content is a graphic would be helpful, as many spammers are turning their entire text into a graphic so that scanning for keywords won’t work.

September 25th, 2007 at 11:14 am

This feature is worthless for spam, regardless of which version of Yahoo! Mail you’re using. Because Yahoo! checks the field when filtering for spam, it won’t find the actual address the email came from, so it won’t block it. Even worse, you can’t block domains once you identify where it came from.

Yahoo! has known about these failures from the beginning, but has never done anything to fix these problems. Their mail servers should be checking to see if a domain is on a known list of spam servers and not allow mail to come through from them. At the same time, they should be checking the field against the field to see that they match, and if they don’t it should be rejected. And users should be able to block domains as well as specific email addresses.

When is Yahoo! going to get off their butt and do this?

September 25th, 2007 at 11:16 am

1) Does marking as SPAM also block those adresses?
seems like that’d be the ‘easy’ way. But i still get nigerian email Daily…
2) My myYahoo page shows all messages as new, i.e. the higlighted number constantly grows, even if read.

This isn’t the right forum im sure, but there are no links for SUPPORT that i know of.

September 25th, 2007 at 11:43 am

What about the real mail that gets pushed into spam? Every so often it happens to me where someone IN MY ADDRESS BOOK sends something with an attachment and it gets relegated to spam or trash. Thus I have to look at every one of these items to be sure I am not deleting something I need. Why does this happen???

September 25th, 2007 at 12:14 pm

Funkd, if you want your MyYahoo page to reflect your current unread mail in your Inbox, push the “Check Mail” button on yahoo mail, and then push Refresh on your MyYahoo page. If you have Yahoo Messenger running (I don’t), I think that tracks your Inbox automatically.

September 25th, 2007 at 12:56 pm

500 accounts???? That was gone in day 2. With the current system in place and the inability to really “filter” this garbage coming in the front door which we should technically, really have, as sophisticated users, then please increase the number on your “owww” “SPAM- rockem, sockem, Blocker” to like 5,000 minimum. Me, I would prefer unlimited.

Yahoo should maintain a master list so I don’t even have to wait to populate this. Can’t you guys pre-filter this junk and help us out; after all we are paying, at least some of us are, for the service. We are ALL paying in lost productivity big time.

September 25th, 2007 at 1:03 pm

Personally, my opinion as suggested ny some else prior, the problem with SPAM could be easily eliminated -if the sender is not in my Yahoo address book and send it to the SPAM folder. I could look at the SPAM and update my address book if needed. A nicety to have would be a domain blocking but not easy to enforce or identify.

Yahoo can not do anything about POP3 mail - that is the responsibility of the email site from whence the mail was forwarded to Yahoo (translated: talk to the POP3 forarding website for prevention). The mail came to you from you - say what ?

Golfer

September 25th, 2007 at 1:35 pm

I need to get notified on my cell phone when I receive emails from companies that I do business with. I was set up to get notified when I received emails, but I got notified day and night with spam. Can I get set up so I get notified from only specific email addresses?

September 25th, 2007 at 3:00 pm

When I see a ‘Nigeria’ or ‘you have just won’ email, I push spam immediately. I never open it, & I’m getting less spam, rather than more. Maybe I’m just lucky, but yahoo is free & I expect some spam, we ate lotsa Spam in the S.Pacific during WW2, & ‘Bully Beef’…I’m 84 & in pretty good health…Spam kept us alive…I sympathize & empathize…like Israel & Muslims, there’s no solution…No, I’m not senile, just don’t expect perfection in human affairs…

September 25th, 2007 at 3:49 pm

What works for me for spam is to use Yahoo’s disposable addresses. I give each website I sign up for there own address. I delete as needed when I receive spam. Even friends and family get a disposable address. If some how spammers get my name from them I can delete and reissue an address. I receive 0 spam.

September 25th, 2007 at 5:16 pm

Hi Duane - Yes, you can get alerted on your mobile when certain messages come in. You just need to set up a filter to alert you when messages from a specific sender to your mobile phone. Sign into Mail, click Options, then Mail Options, then click Filters on the left hand side. As you set up the filter (based on From, To, Subject or Body text), you can check a box labeled “Send an alert to my mobile device”.

Note that you need to register your mobile device first with Yahoo!. You can do that at:
http://sites.mobile.yahoo.com/s/selectdev

September 25th, 2007 at 5:57 pm

What about placing emails with dates in the future into spam? simple but still waiting………………………………….

September 25th, 2007 at 8:44 pm

The Address Guard feature for disposable addresses is more than worth the $20 a year for the premium account.

However, now that I have all these unique addresses set up with their own folders for family, friends, online registrations, businesses I deal with and so forth it would sure be nice to be able to create folders within folders to organize things better. For example a folder named Family could then have individual folders inside it for each family member.

September 25th, 2007 at 9:17 pm

My “Block list” filled up a long time ago. 500 is simply not enough, nor is only 15 filters.

Wildcards would be helpful. The spammers keep changing their DOMAINS, now.

I get ~3 times as much spam as ‘real’ mail. How about “bouncing” spam. That way the spammer get his inbox filled up.

September 25th, 2007 at 9:35 pm

Thanks Robert Johnson, that sequence worked. Im surprised that it didn’t happen on its own in the last week +. There should be a server-side sequence that verifies the email count numbers are relevant.
ALSO: domain blocking would be great!. For starters, I would like to block all @terra.es.

September 25th, 2007 at 9:46 pm

L:

Spam cannot be bounced back as the senders have all inbound mail blocked. Spammers track you by seeing if your email browser Reads from their server, such as graphics loading, or by you clicking a link.

I actually bought a domain name from Yahoo a while back, and I now recieve SNAIL MAIL from other registry companies. TECH: If I run a Whois search on my domain, it shows my home info. Anyone know where I go via web to work on my domain/server? (The search does show an email link, but I was hoping there was an internet interface)
_Thanks in advance

September 25th, 2007 at 11:14 pm

adding adresses into blocklist MANUALLY?? helloo.. what happend to the feature when you mark a message as spam, the adress gets blocked automatically?!

does this still work, or is this also one of the feature that the new yahoo mail doesnt feature?!

September 25th, 2007 at 11:34 pm

Anyone know if the the New Yahoo Texting feature will work with the iphone? Could this be a free solution to SMS texting from the iphone?

September 26th, 2007 at 12:35 am

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September 26th, 2007 at 3:23 am

This “advice” is a waste of time.
First, address blocking is a waste of time with spammers. They change addresses like babies change diapers. Second, Yahoo provides filters—but limits them to 50, which is hardly enough to do word based blocks.

Yahoo’s anti-spam techniques are essentially useless. Here’s the only advice that works–buy a whitelist / challenge response program like Choice Mail that works with Yahoo as well as Outlook.

DO NOT depend on Yahoo to fix the problem for you.

September 26th, 2007 at 3:48 am

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September 26th, 2007 at 5:19 am

I have been using Yahoo mail for 10 years– i like it–it does a good job–i am still on the old mail system and the free mail –Yahoo can’t possibly take care of everything!!! if they tried to someone would yell about stuff not getting through. Thanks Yahoo!!! You have to admit this is a really cool easy wat to talk to people you may not talk to if not for the mail–

September 26th, 2007 at 5:51 am

Oh I am so sorry that Yahoo makes you write a lightweight and useless blog piece. As anyone witrh experience blocking spam knows, blocking a single address is worthless. Spammers randomize their addresses or via botnets hijack real addresses from compromised PCs. The only way Yahoo will ever earn the trust of its customers in the area of spam blocking is to get tough by using something besides the chewing gum and duct tape quality software it has in place now. For relief from unsatisfied customers, please show this post to you product manager. Two aspirin are optional.

September 26th, 2007 at 8:21 am

what really needs to be added is the option to block email addresses at the domain level. since they limit you to 500 addresses, the only way to maximize that is to allow the domain level blocking which will net you a lot more addresses in one fell swoop. an increase in the max number of addresses wouldn’t hurt either.

September 26th, 2007 at 8:56 am

I can not understand why I put 2 words in the signature option and you say that it’s too long.
WHY? PLEASE REPLY ! ! !
Jesse W. Woods

September 26th, 2007 at 10:16 am

unwanted messages. Using block e-mail addresses. How can I add aurl block without opening the message to see the url.

September 26th, 2007 at 11:22 am

HOW TO REMOVE AN ADDRESS from my Spam List? I accidentally marked a mail from a very dear relative by Clicking the SPAM button. Now I do not receieve mail from him, although his e-mail Id is still ther in my addresses list.

I do not want to loose a dear relative for ever. And do want to usr Yahoo with my current Id.

September 26th, 2007 at 11:34 am

Jesse Woods, Odd, I can put several lines into my signature, no problem.

September 26th, 2007 at 11:40 am

Dehlvi, Have your friend send you an email. Then go into your Spam folder, select it, and push the “Not Spam” button. I believe thereafter your friend’s mail will go into your Inbox rather than Spam.

September 26th, 2007 at 2:51 pm

Why doesn’t yahoo block already the garbage that comes in daily? lottery, viagra, the stuff like this: áÒËÁÄÉÊ …….. it’s always from different addresses, I don’t understand why yahoo can’t filter it already!

September 26th, 2007 at 3:42 pm

This is a relatively useless feature as my address block is filled up within days and adding addresses as you instruct doesn’t do any good. Another useless yahoo feature that wastes everyone’s time.

September 26th, 2007 at 5:38 pm

I get so much Spam saying i won all these lotteries. I always spam them, but the next day thay show up again with a different e-mail. Can’t you just spam all these lottery e-mails, as we all know they are spam.

Thank you,
Robyn

September 26th, 2007 at 7:44 pm

Funk’d - are you talking about editing your Domain Registration? If you go to the http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com and sign in, you should see the Domain Registration link. You can update and change things there. I made mine private for the 2 I own and have never had an issue with snail mail.
K

September 26th, 2007 at 8:51 pm

Come on “Brains of Yahoo”! You can sure do better than this. I get so many spam emails with variations of my yahoo address. Why do I get these in the first place? If the email message doesn’t match my yahoo address, it shouldn’t be in my mailbox. Filter technology isn’t rocket science. US Postal Service manages to only put mail in my box if it is for ME (except for some local advertising). Let me hear from the software gurus at Yahoo on how they are going to fix this problem within the NEXT WEEK!

September 26th, 2007 at 11:09 pm

The Spam button just doesn’t do anything. For nearly a month I’ve been getting porn spam from random valid Yahoo e-mail addresses (the DomainKeys lists as valid). I’ve been clicking Spam on these, but I’ve yet to see a single one go into the Spam filter. Similar e-mail that comes from non-Yahoo mail address is sent to the spam filter.

It would be nice if Yahoo filtered messages coming from Yahoo users to Yahoo users for spam.

September 27th, 2007 at 1:13 am

I love Spam as an alternative to sausage. Its fantatsic for camping, as it needs no refrigeration, and it tastes delicious. As far as my YAHOO! account, I thought the daily spam dosage was par for the course. I’d love to see YAHOO! spend more time on this one.

September 27th, 2007 at 3:58 am

after reading all the comments about spam mail, I am so relieved to find out that I am not the only one getting too many useless mail. I really wish Yahoo would find a real solution to the problem.

September 27th, 2007 at 5:16 am

Wow, do I feel lucky, I have been with Yahoo for 4 years and still get very little spam. I am not a computer literate person, but I do know enough to keep out of most websites that might have spammers lurking around.

Again, Yahoo thank you for the great service you offer.

September 27th, 2007 at 5:27 am

what about out going mail using your email address for sales on internet ?

once in a while check your bulk mail and see you are selling some items sending your mail..i found surprises on my bulk mail.

September 27th, 2007 at 7:42 am

I think the SPAM folder is pretty useless. At least one important email a day winds up there, even though the sender’s email address is in my address book. So I still need to look in the SPAM folder every day and see what’s there. Obviously, I delete almost all of them immediately, without opening them. But I’m still forced to read all those vile subject lines. They might as well go right to my regular inbox, since I still need to manually deal with them daily.

September 27th, 2007 at 9:45 am

Yahoo and other e-mail providers could/should have global filters that would:
a) limit #emails sent/received from any given address within a given time frame (unless the sender is on a verified ‘whitelist’ like yahoo, microsoft, symantec, etc),
b) require the subject to be present (rather than ‘none’),
c) limit the subject to having no more than 3 or 4 special characters,
d) and have some other simple checks (”You just wonn…”, Nigerian bank scams, etc)
…
that would stop probably 50% of spam before it ever got to a personal mailbox.

Some of the global filters, etc., should be at the senders end of the problem … don’t let the spam into the internet to start with (or at least cut it off as soon as detectable).

If thousands & thousands of users report a site as a spammer, kill its ability to send e-mail.

September 27th, 2007 at 10:24 am

hi………………….

September 27th, 2007 at 10:27 am

blocked addresses work great, but we need more than 500 entry spaces. How about 2,000?

September 27th, 2007 at 11:05 am

I agree with some of the other users. Yahoo should allow blocking of IP addresses. Blocking email addresses is useless since they are forged anyway.

September 27th, 2007 at 11:36 am

I don’t think the “Blocked Email Addresses” thing will work effectively as spammers always change their email addresses.

September 27th, 2007 at 2:00 pm

The automatic spam filtering works pretty good, but my spam folder is impossible to work with since so much of the spam is dated 2037 or some other future date. with 1000’s in there it is simply too much trouble to see if you’ve blocked something I wanted to get. Can’t search it either.

For addresses I block, 500 is totally inadequate if you are blocking by domain names, let along email addresses. We need to be shown the ip address and allowed to block a single Ip number or a group of them.

It does no good at all to hit “this is spam” after the first 500 times you’ve done it, since it would appear yahoo mail is simply ignoring you and not letting you know.

If there were a reasonably easy way of sorting the contents of the blocked email so one could get rid of all those with the same domain name and put in the domain name. but even that is only half the job since the same IP can have dozens of domain names and it’s the ip that is actually sending the spam.

Does Yahoo do any stats on what everyone reports as spam? It would seem to me that if a particular domain name had a million “this is spam” clicks that yahoo might go after the owner of that domain name with a lawsuit about wasting user’s time and costing them money.

But more importantly, if the same ip address has a million “this is spam” clicks and there are more than two or three domain names associated with that ip, then I think it worth while to do something about it.

September 28th, 2007 at 3:25 am

sometimes i get unsubscribed messages, in my inbox, i do not want to block messages as i may unwittingly block messages of my own long lost ones

September 28th, 2007 at 3:34 am

Can someone at Yahoo please call me on my cell phone as I have suddenly lost all my inbox e- and sent box e-mails from July to Sept 27. I have important informaiton in my inbox that must be recovered

Thanks Mary Westerhaus
[phone number removed for privacy reasons]

September 28th, 2007 at 4:39 am

I think Yahoo does a decent job of filtering spam. However, I only want to see messages from my contacts in my in box. Everything else should go to spam. Hotmail has this feature, why doesn’t Yahoo?.

I’m so annoyed with all the junk in my in box that does not come from my contact list, that I’m considering taking my money (I pay for yahoo mail service), and going back to hotmail.

YAHOO, are you listening!?!?!

October 1st, 2007 at 4:54 am

Lately it seems that the volume of spam has increased dramatically. This morning when I opened Yahoo mail, I had 181 spam msgs, and this was overnight. What’s going on with this????