SpamCop - global spam prevention

SpamCop is a spam reporting service existing from 1998. From the beginning, it was only for an individual usage, but then it gradually became widening. And now this is enough prevalent and useful free service, specialized on reporting spam.

It works this way. If the user defines the letter as spam, he can report the disturbance to the ISP (Internet Service Provider) or to the web host of the illegal mail’s sender. Then, with these reports, SpamCop arranges its DNS blocking list (SCBL) of WEB-sites and computers which are related to sending spam. SpamCop registers their IP addresses. Ad notam, one of the SCBL’s special features is that it stops the IP blockage, if no spam is registered from it for 24 hours.

But SCBL can make some legal IPs be wrongly identified and blacklisted if they don’t use the special methods of backscatter averting. Generally, it can happen if the IP is used by a big amount of the ISP users or as the result of vindictive or negligent spam reporting. Thus, some useful e-mails can be blocked, and this is a notable flaw of SCBL. Consequently, the list should better be userd as the filter, not as a block. Despite, SpamCop needs manual conformation that the mail is spam, the blockage of legal IPs sometimes happen and ISPs have to forbid SpamSpot reporting if they consider it necessary.

On the other hand, SpamCop helps ISPs and a-mail providers to determine and cut off the spammers’ accounts. And, SpamCop shares the information from the reports with other anti-spam organizations, this way expanding its own influence.

In spite of the disadvantages, criticism and competition, SpamCop is in requisition for many years. It’s sufficiently easy in use and understandable. For example, even if marking the useful e-mail as spam, the user can just move it back to the general inbox folder to stop the mentioned sender blocked.