Three Antispam Software Myths That May Be Costing You Some Profit
Michalis "BIG Mike" Kotzakolios
Kotzakoliou, SSA

“Why? I don’t need an antispam software program!”

This is the usual reply of a person being offered to partake of a spam filtering software these days. In most people’s minds, the spam filtering capabilities of web based emails and some desktop email clients, as well as the passing of the Anti-Spam Law, would be enough to solve the problem of spam in their inbox. However, this is one of the antispam software myths that may be costing their businesses some money. Let’s take a look at three of these antispam software myths and how you could learn from the truth behind them.

1. An antispam software program would be superfluous since email services usually have their own filters. This is probably the biggest untruth of them all. Though it is true that email services are possessed of filtering systems, this is in compliance with the mandates of the Anti-Spam Law to protect their clients, more than anything else. Usually, these built-in filters merely recognize emails that contain certain triggers. Once a trigger, in the form of a word more often than not, is pinpointed, the said email is immediately sent to the bulk folder. But what if such words are essential to the message of the email which was really meant for you? An antispam software program has more checks in place, which every email would have to go through before they are determined to be spam. This would better assure that you’ll have better chances of getting the correspondences that are really meant for you.

2. An antispam software program would be superfluous since email services filter out messages containing viruses and other malicious programs like spyware and the like. Again, built-in filters only filter out messages containing triggers. If a virus is attached to a message that does not contain any trigger words, it would most likely appear in your inbox, and make your terminal susceptible to potentially damaging consequences. Most antispam software programs employ viral scans as part of their stricter determination of junk and malicious emails.

3. An antispam software program, being a third party product, is not as flexible as built-in filters. Many people believe that since built-in filters are integrated in the email service itself, it would easily be able to adapt to changes to make it more resistant against evolving spamming techniques. But antispam software programs are capable of these as well, with more efficiency at that. Most of them are updatable through patch downloads. But more importantly, an anti-spam software program can be personally programmed on the manner by which it would carry out its operations. This makes it more pliable than the usual fare.