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We give our customers an extensive collection of
customizable spam fighting tools on the premise that our
customers are the best judge of what they consider spam.
We do not automatically block any mail to your account.
We only block email that your rules instruct us to
block.
If you are unfamiliar with the wide range of
spam-fighting approaches or in a hurry to start using your
account, simply enabling SpamAssassin (Options
--> SpamAssassin) should significantly reduce your
spam, but we strongly recommend that you do not use your
main user address (yourname@cotse.net) for your mail and
that you first create one or two other "identities" that you
will use for your mail.
As you explore our email
options, you can pick and choose many additional
approaches, depending on how much you want to restrict
incoming email, whether you want to filter mail from unknown
senders completely, or filter based on the email address in
the "To" line, filter based on particular words contained in
the email, etc.
Our current spam-fighting tools and options include, but
are not limited to:
- SpamAssassin
- DNSBL
- Bayesian Filtering
- Blacklists
- IP Blacklists
- Goldlist Sender
- Goldlist Aliases
- Password-Protected Subject Lines
- Banned Vocabulary
- Blocking Inline Html
- Blocking Attachments
- Handling Potentially Unsafe Images
Your email, your rules. Use any or all of the above
customizable options to create a system that keeps spam out
of your mailbox.
In addition to setting rules to filter spam before it
ever reaches your mailbox, prevention is an important part
of the process. To that end, we give you the option to
create unlimited aliases that you can easily "kill" if they
start receiving spam.
Automatically
Expiring Aliases:
We also give you the option to create email addresses or
aliases that will automatically expire after a date you set,
so that after that date, any email to that address will be
automatically rejected. Lets say you download some software
from a site and you need to receive a confirmation code or
key from them, but you don't want them emailing you again
after that. For such situations, you can use an expiring
alias. By using an alias in the form of
yyyymmdd@{youraccount}.cotse.net you have given them a mail
address that will only accept mail up to that date (ex.
20040531@{youraccount}.cotse.net will only accept mail up
till May 31, 2004). This way you have a temporary address to
get what you need, then it is automatically shut down, so
that even if it is sold or spammed after, it doesn't matter,
it's no longer valid.
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When you encounter a web site that requires your e-mail
address, give them a custom or "throwaway" alias that you
create "on the fly" (as you need one). You can use an
alias with the site name in it. For example, if you need to
register with E-Bay, use ebay@{youraccount}.cotse.net as
your email address for signup. This way you can sort all
email sent to ebay@(youraccount).cotse.net into custom
folders based upon the address it was sent to and you'll be
able to tell if E-Bay sold your address to spammers. If you
ever tire of receiving e-mail at the address
ebay@{youraccount}.cotse.net, just add it to the list of
dead aliases under "Options - Kill Aliases" and it will no
longer be a valid address for you.
You may also wish to reserve one or more of our available
domain names to use for contacts that you don't fully trust
or may want to "kill" later on. We currently offer you the
ability to choose from a variety of domain
names for your email. You could decide to use one of
those domains for contacts that may be short-lived, and then
"kill" off that domain later on.
Here's another tip you might find helpful:
Enable SpamAssassin and check the headers to see how Spam
Assassin scores something and then add strings or phrases to
your Banned Vocabulary filter. Header information that
SpamAssassin evaluates can become part of your own filters
this way.
Do note that Cotse.Net filters apply to the header and
body of an email message, but do not get applied to
attachments. And since recent news stories have noted how
more email may start arriving with web bugs that can track
whether you open your email and your geographic area, your
settings for blocking attachments, blocking html, and the
handling of potentially unsafe images may become even more
important parts of your privacy protection.
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