Re: OT: GMail and Spam

From: Herb Schaltegger (herb.schaltegger_at_NOSPAMgmail.com.INVALID)
Date: 03/22/05 

Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 07:56:27 -0600

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 02:16:42 -0600, John Wil*** wrote
(in article <GRBL1321EF31@garibaldi.tradoc.net>):

> Derek Lyons wrote:
>> I've had my gmail adress (unmunged) posted to Usenet for months...
>>
>> So far, only about 1-2 pieces of spam a week make it through the
>> filters.
>
> OK, that's a fairly reasonable false negative rate. But what about the
> false positive rate? How much legitimate mail doesn't make it through?
>
> John.
>
>

Depends on what you mean by "legitimate." I've never had an
individually-addressed email, from one particular sender sent specifically to
me, fail to make it through. Other "legitimate" email is a little bit
murkier. I tend to order quite a large amount of musical recording gear and
instrument accessories from several of the major internet music retailers
(Musician's Friend and Music123, for example). When you order from them you
end up on their weekly email newsletters lists - I don't often have time to
read them but when I do they tend to be interesting and often have links to
otherwise-unannounced major sales - not truly "spam" in the classic sense.
Anyway, those usually end up in my gmail spam filter, but legitimate receipts
from purchases never do. Ever. Similarly, I have NEVER had a Nigerian/419
spam make it through, no matter what the particulars, who the sender claims
to be, or what country he claims to be from (I've gotten them from the former
Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia lately, even). They just simply don't make
it. No ebay or PayPal phishing scam mail, either. No V 1 a G R a or p3n1s
enlargement spam, either. Nada.

Their filters are really pretty damned good. I check the spam folder once or
twice a week to make sure but I've been very happy with my account over the
last 8 or 9 months.

Quantcast