You’ve seen him on Yodel, and you’ve seen him rocking the ushanka on this very blog, but now you will have a chance to ask our resident “Anti-Spam Czar” Mark (aka the head of our anti-abuse team for Mail) all you wanted to know about spam. Be sure to join us on Wednesday, July 30th, from 4-5PM PT, for a live, moderated chat with our anti-spam expert (NOTE: Over the weekend the Workshops page displayed an incorrect start time, but should now be correct).
During the session Mark and I will be responding to some of the top questions I’ve been receiving from users on the blog. Users will also be able to submit questions in advance by visiting our Workshop page, as well as live during the event.
This will be a great opportunity to not only get a better understanding of the kind of steps you can take to reduce the spam you see, but and also to share some of your thoughts directly with the people who can make a difference…so don’t miss it!
***Someone suspected my cavalier attitude might have rubbed of on our Czar, so I swapped out the ushanka pic for something a little more formal.***
Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail
Al-you are absolutely right about the bulk-spam issue. Stupidest thing I have seen in a long time and absolutely no logical reason for it. After over 10 years with yahoo and now paying for it, too. I am ready to leave. Can’t afford the time and the frustration.
to X Marine…not correct. I receive many important emails in what used to be called the bulk box but now is called the spam -even though it isn’t and there is another spam box. DUH! If I deleted bulk aka spam, there are many I would not receive and I do not have time to go through them each day and move the ones I want to inbox. I should not have to do that nor should I have to go through everything and eliminate 100-150 spams per day, most of the repeats.
BAck to CBO: Well said! I switched to the new yahoo and am paying for it but it is not any better. I still get the same spam each and every day! And the two spam files instead of one for bulk mail is really stupid and confusing. The filters don’t work, the spam definitely doesn’t work, for some reason it takes 2-3 minutes for me to get into my email while it is “downloading”, I have tried the online chat and have waited over 30 minutes and then have to wait 2-3 minutes in between my reply and their reply, I lost the emoticons…..should I go on? Tried tech support -forget it. I am so tired of them not reading the problem in the email and sending me a canned response which doesn’t even answer the question.
Whatever happened to service worth the money and customer service? Do they listen to anyone–I mean really listen? Listening requires a response that acknowledges acceptance or reception of the message sent….they also need a dictionary.
It is difficult for me to change because my email is quite specific for me for multiple reasons. AAAArrgh.
You obviously have not tried to contact Yahoo for help after receiving 1000 spam and return mails per day, and made to hold for 30-45 minutes to finally get no answer. When you get a pop up window that says your spam filter is saturated, I believe you have taken all the control over your issue that you can, I don’t believe it is good to generalize until you have experienced the other person’s problem
I’m guessing you also have downloaded AVG 7.5 that autoupgrades everyday.
How many people’s minds have you made up with that comment. I’ve considered g-mail for quite a while. I don’t think Yahoo can plug millions of leaks in the dam with nickle-and-dime fees.
(Jumping up and down) Yeeehawww!!! I am totally against leveling limits on blocked addresses. What happens when we hit 500? Does it reset like an answering machine? Or do we establish another account if the goodwill is still there? Or do we go somewhere else? I bet they make you pay for another 500.
I think a phising button would be great…or make a button on your kbd programmable…save a mouse click…it’s a 50/50 deal.
I agree on filters. There’s gotta be a better way to get rid of the lottery, phishing, and XXX-rated stuff that gets thru to an address like mine. I don’t want to babysit my filter options all the time. And paying for Yahoo Plus…is counterproductive. I think Yahoo oughta stop thinking of ways to save a sinking ship. I was against the sale for being a long-time Yahoo customer but I think it’s time to yield to Mr. Icahn…how many $20 credit card transactions will it take???
I have been a yahoo emailer for 9 years now. I have tried other free services and by far yahoo is (or was) the best. Recently, spam in my inbox has increased 10 fold and I can pinpoint when this increase in the spam getting through was. The spam gates opened 10 fold it seems in conjunction with yahoo renaming the “bulk” folder to a “spam” folder. First, why was this done and what caused all the spam to be redirected into our “inbox” folders at this point?
I wish I’d seen the notice of the chat earlier. We’re being badly impacted by Yahoo’s spam filter bouncing e-mail to our members. The sender gets the 421 message saying the message is being deferred and may be automatically resent later. But it isn’t resent. The link in the message says what to do if we get the message in our smtp logs. We don’t get the message in the smtp log. The smtp log shows that everything seems to be OK. We use Microsoft’s SmarterMail mail server software and the 421 messages do appear in the Delivery log, but that is too late. Our smtp server believed Yahoo when it said that the addresses were all valid and that the mail would be dleivered, so they are no longer available to be resent! The problem does not occur with any other ISP, only with Yahoo mail when we try to send to Yahoo mail users. And of course they don’t know that they’re not getting their mail. The forms on the site jsut seem to get us in a loop and don’t resolve anything.
Do you have to set a filter for every single email address you don’t want delivered? As you are probably aware, these spammers just change some little something as the sender and it would take forever to put them all into the filters. If I could enter the domain part – like @hotmail.com – for example to filter out anything coming from one place, it would greatly help the load.
Hi Mark,
I have been with yahoo since 2000 and since then have used your email as my primary email address. I tried gmail when it came out and used hotmail occasionally.
One of the reasons I use yahoo as my primary address is the ability for me to control what goes to spam and what doesn’t.
It’s easy for me to control what hits my inbox and what hits my spam folder. The other services I tried kept bumping email I actually wanted to my spam folder which was very frustrating.
I’m very happy with yahoo email as is so keep up the good work.
Hi Mark & Ryan,
My first email account back in 98 was “hotmail”…Hotmail used to be pretty hot those days, believe it or not…LOL…then I started to get tons of “unwanted” email in my inbox and I got tired of it and signed up for my second personal account with “yahoo” in 2002. Since then I have been pretty happy. You guys have been doing a fantastic job, keep up the good work.
Then came gmail and I thought between my work account and two personal accounts, facebook, etc…how many more account I can keep up with?! So I signed up for one, but I rarely use it. I am not sure how good they are with spam fighting, I hear they are not that bad…
I just wanted to thank you guys for making our online experience so fun, I love your IM, email and Yahoo! simply ROCKs.
Since Feb I have been forced to forward all of my Yahoo mail through GMAIL in order to cope with the 200+ spam email that I get daily. GMAIL catches them. Yahoo is not trying any more, and after 10 year, I have had to leave.
You know just another thought. Yahoo why not offer to everyone who complains a better version of spam filtering tool which they can pay for every month. So a free email account but perhaps $5.00 for more tools?
georgia girl transplanted, I do not understand why you do not just change your settings and automatically delete all the email in the bulk box, that way you would not see these emails.
Yahoo gives the user control to block what they want, perhaps they need to give more tools or educate the users more, but just blocking is not fair to everyone else. Why not switch LiveMail/hotmail that way you can cry about not ever getting emails because their filters are so crazy.
I think yahoo just needs to put the control in the hands of the user by enhancing the tools and allowing the user to select the type of messages they want and do not want.
Also, perhaps you should change your setting to allow only people who you approve to contact you. There is a setting for that in yahoo mail.
So stop crying and take some responsibility and solve this issue for yourself. Not everyone agrees with you and should they should not suffer and then have to change their email to another company because yahoo filters are crazy.
The old picture was better.
Come on Yahoo. I got 902 and 722 spams in one day! Who are you trying to kid? You’ve got to be making big bucks. My Google e-mail filters it all out beforehand. I don’t have to wade through the bulk mail to make sure some of my regular e-mail buddies aren’t put there, (which they often are) and the occasional(?) spammer doesn’t make it through on my regular e-mail. Get real! People are on to this kind of phony stuff, despite your disclaimers. Improve your e-mail service if you want to compete with Google and stop making excuses.
Yahoo! tech support told me to reset my spam filter on the options page if I was getting too much spam. Unfortunately, that resets it to zero, meaning I get 100-200 spams per day. Yahoo! says it’s my fault and there is no way to reset the sam back to it’s original settings! I have been a huge Yahoo! fan, but this is getting ridiculous. I don’t even get the same spam protection as a new Yahoo user who just signed up. I have spent hours with Yahoo support, but they refuse to fix it. Great company.
yeah let people vent about the spam. yahoo knows they could stop the spam but then they would have to significantly reduce the amount of email traffic they report to potential buyers. like microsoft. no wonder they lowered their bid.
this is aol all over again. who are you guys kidding?
Hi Phillip,
Just trying to have a little fun, since he’s often referred to as the “Czar” (of anti-spam, not the telestrator … that’s Mike Fratello).
-Ryan
stilwebm,
Are you holding the CTRL key when you click the forward button, or when you click SEND? It should be the former.
-Ryan
Hey guys,
how are you doing?!
I saw this topic, and i just came up with a question:
I get a lot of spams….and by a lot i mean A LOT, so the 500-blocked addresses list gets full pretty fast. So do you guys know if i can extend or enlarge that list (i.e. to 1000 addresses for instance)?
Or can i use third party software to make my own block list?
thx a lot gusy;)
Has Yahoo EVER blocked spam , I don’t think so. from the 1st day you offered spamguard , I’ve been signed on. It has NEVER worked. I find everyday the top items in my email box are spam. Spam permeats my entire box, every month I go through my box from the back & delete spam. I have given up telling Yahoo that a message is spam , because, the next day the same spam is back again. I suppose your idea of dating spam for the tear 2038 , is supposed to be funny, it isn’t.
I signed up for Yahoo! Mail four years ago. I did not use the account to send emails for over two months, nor did I use the address to sign up for anything in any way, shape or form during that time. I did not use Yahoo! messenger. In other words, I should not have been getting any email in my account. Despite that, I got 5-8 spam email per day within weeks of opening my account. How? Because my nickname includes initials and numbers and spammers are able to generate emails using combinations of initials and numbers, for starters. I also was getting emails addressed to a different account that happened to be closed. The email addresses were similar, so the system delivered them to my account. Yahoo will tell you that that doesn’t happen, but it does.
You can’t filter for everything that’s out there. I’ve utilized all of my spam filters before and still wound up with a lot of spam. I get 2-3 per day that are postdated. It’s July 26…why am I getting spam that’s dated July 28? That’s something that should be fairly obvious to the folks at Yahoo and is no way in the control of the user.
Yeah, there are a lot of people out there that are careless with their email addresses and there are things they can do to alleviate the problem. Getting rid of spam altogether? Ain’t gonna happen. And you can’t “unsub” from phony lottery emails, etc. that you never signed up for. I think most people would agree that scams that attempt to bilk people out of their money are considered spam.
Sometimes people do all they can and are careful but still wind up with spam.
I got excited for a second. Unfortunately that functionality is not available, at least not for Firefox 2.x, 3.x, or Internet Explorer 6.x.
Supposedly, Windows users can forward an e-mail message as an attachment by holding the Control key while clicking “Forward.” Mac users currently do not have this option.
When you click on the link that says Wed July 30, 4-5 CT it goes to a page that says the anti-spam chat is July 29 at 10:30 am? Am I missing something here?
I used hotmail for a while but half the time wouldn’t receive my emails – even in the junk folder because of the overdone spam filters.
I now use yahoo mail as my main email even though I have others to choose from. It’s the most reliable email I have and most importantly – I actually get my email! I control the filters which allows me to pick and choose what email I receive.
I have seen the same thing: A while back all spam when to my spam folder except for the pdf file spam with the stock trading. Now I am getting about 2 Lottery and a Nigerian letter spam each day and yahoo doesn’t seem to catch them as spam even though they have in the past.
Over all though the spam has been pretty controllable in my inbox. I get about 5-10 spam emails a week and less than 2 false positives each month.
Why would anyone want to join you when the dude looks like a dork and a flash back from the 60′s tv serious gilligan island.lets get real lets be more professional looking youll get much better results.
I’ve noticed that spam and phishing attempts seem to come in waves. It seemed under control for a while, with Yahoo correctly directing them into my spam folder, when all of a sudden in the past week or two I have been bombarded with obvious spam and phishing attempts that are not being caught as spam. I’ve noticed this pattern in the past too. I guess every once in a while someone comes up with a new method to get around the filters.
Suggestion: there should be a “phishing” button in addition to the “spam” button to report these ne’er-do-wells.
I don’t know if anyone has noticed or not, but recently spammers use domain names with difference in the digits they put at the end of the name, e.g. asd@something01.com, afas@something02.com, qwer@something10.com.
So one can’t filter it thoroughly.
If you could do something for this, say filtering “something$$.com” and $$ means any two digits (0-9) that’d be great.
I wonder if it’s possible or not!
It’s not just Mac users. Yahoo! removed the ability to “Forward as Attachment” for everybody.
Worse yet, Yahoo!’s abuse team rejects about 50% of the reports of spam either DomainKey and IP validated as coming from Yahoo!’s network, or advertising Yahoo! hosted sites, even phishing scams. Is the M&A turmoil causing chaos in the abuse department?
I believe both the loss of ability to forward unaltered emails and sloppy enforcement have led to an increase of spam for and from Yahoo! users.
I’ve been using Yahoo Mail for 10 years now. I have never given out my primary Yahoo email address to anyone. Yahoo is the only one who knows what it is. I use the AddressGuard feature in Mail Plus extensively which is well worth the $20 a year.
In that 10 year period I have only seen a couple of pieces of “genuine spam” in my inbox. In addition I see “suspected spam” in my Spam Folder a few times a year that have always turned out to be okay.
It doesn’t matter who your email provider is. If you give out your “real” email address to anyone or post it anywhere you can expect that some spam will end up in your inbox.
I agree phising needs to get blocked and honestly the domain key project with yahoo has really helped a lot. The paypal scams and banking scams need to get blocked but also the user needs to get educated on where to put their information at on the web.
Is it Yahoo’s responsibility if an paypal phising emails does get into my email and then I fill it out? No, I should be smart enough to know Pay Pal never ask for my information via an email. There is enough education out there.
I am happy Yahoo gives the user the decision to the user and not do what HORRIBLE LiveMail does, with blocking IPs and not letting emails get to their users.
The great thing about yahoo mail is it gives you the user to filter the email out. You can set your own rules with the filters and block the email you do not want.
Just because you think it is spam another person might not. Also, the only way people get your email address is if you sign up somewhere, why not just unsub from where you signed up from or block them via your filter.
You as the user need to take some control over your issue.
I agree. I hope to move to Norton when my Mcaffee runs out as they dont give me Spamkiller any longer.
I have a couple of comments to forward to Mark!
I agree that Yahoo! has made great progress in the last year (especially with the Jan 4 zombie blasting)
I am a heavy user of the Yahoo Mail Plus AddressGuard feature which lets me create disposable email addresses so that I can see which one was used to send spam and terminate it. When spam is sent to “undisclosed recipients” including my disposable address, I can’t see which disposable address was used. I know one was since I filter email to a number of these addresses to a “shopping” folder. It is not enough to be able to look at the sending IP address in the headers because the spammer who stole my address sent mail from an AOL account. I reported this to support in March so hopefully it’s still on the books.
I would also like to second skepticalthinker’s remark that Forward As Attachment is sorely needed. It’s hard to forward a phishing email to Bank of America security.
With occasional exceptions, Yahoo! seems to filter spam pretty well in my opinion. On the occasions where spam still gets through , I like to do my part by reporting spam to ISPs when possible. Until Y!Mail returns the “Forward As Attachment” option for Mac users (as promised??), this is not possible, as providing the complete headers, content, links, etc. to the ISPs’ abuse teams become nearly impossible without the ability to forward the offending e-mail in unedited form. The fight against spam is everyone’s fight, and I hope Yahoo! will be expeditious in rolling out the return of this feature to Mac users.
Yahoo’s ability to stop spam has declined materially. i cant take it anymore. i just signed up for gmail today. what happened? you used to be pretty good at catching it?