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Can Thunderbird tell my ISP what is spam?

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by Matt

rpbourret
rpbourret
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Both Thunderbird and my ISP have junk mail filters. It would be really nice if Thunderbird could provide feedback to the ISP on what I think is spam. That is, when I designate a message as spam, Thunderbird sends the message and the spam designation to the ISP's spam filter. (Given that different ISPs use different spam filters, this would need to be done in some sort of universal way so that ISP filters from different developers could use this information.)

There are two benefits to this. First, it would allow me to train the ISP's filter so that less spam reaches me. Second, assuming the ISP's spam filter uses messages from all users to determine what is spam (rather than on a per-user basis), it would allow the ISP's customers to collectively define what is spam, thereby reducing spam by more than any one individual user could do.

Thanks.

Both Thunderbird and my ISP have junk mail filters. It would be really nice if Thunderbird could provide feedback to the ISP on what I think is spam. That is, when I designate a message as spam, Thunderbird sends the message and the spam designation to the ISP's spam filter. (Given that different ISPs use different spam filters, this would need to be done in some sort of universal way so that ISP filters from different developers could use this information.) There are two benefits to this. First, it would allow me to train the ISP's filter so that less spam reaches me. Second, assuming the ISP's spam filter uses messages from all users to determine what is spam (rather than on a per-user basis), it would allow the ISP's customers to collectively define what is spam, thereby reducing spam by more than any one individual user could do. Thanks.

Chosen solution

if you use an IMAP mail account then your spam choices are transmitted to your mail provider through the movement of the mail into the SPAM folder. Unfortunately not all providers have left the 20th Century yet so only offer POP access. POP is in no way interactive and does not know there is anything on a server but an inbox that needs to be downloaded.

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Matt
Matt
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Chosen Solution

if you use an IMAP mail account then your spam choices are transmitted to your mail provider through the movement of the mail into the SPAM folder. Unfortunately not all providers have left the 20th Century yet so only offer POP access. POP is in no way interactive and does not know there is anything on a server but an inbox that needs to be downloaded.