Hello Matt, Thursday, February 17, 2005, 6:30:10 AM, you wrote:
MF> I do have a question with regards to training. Once in a while, I MF> receive advertisement e-mails from trusted sites. What is the MF> best practice to handle these messages? Is it more prudent to MF> sa-learn --spam them, or to simply blacklist? I say "legitimate" MF> because I do receive mails from these sources that are of value to MF> me....obviously, I care not for their advertisement e-mails. Why do you receive these advertising emails? What defines a trusted site? As with any human endeavor, there's a gray area -- emails which are sent to you because of your subscription to something you want, and by subscribing you agreed to receive the advertising. Example: I use efax.com's free inbound faxing service. Because of that, I not only get free inbound faxes emailed to me, but I get regular advertisements (that supposedly pay for the service). I could avoid the ads by paying for the service, but I don't get enough faxes to justify the fees. In my view this isn't spam -- I could cut off the ads by either paying for the service or discontinuing the service. I can cut out the ads on Accuradio.com by not listening to their music. I can cut out the ads on TV by buying a TIVO or by not watching TV. I can avoid the ads in the daily newspaper by not reading the newspaper. So I accept those ads, and I treat them as non-spam. I filter/delete them in my email client, not in SpamAssassin. I get one or two of these each day. It's my choice, and if they get bothersome, I'll unsubscribe. Bob Menschel
