Frequently Asked Questions

Server-Side SMTP Spam Scanning

GCom Internet can scan your incoming email passing through our Australian mail servers and notate the subject line of all items found to have a high spam probability. Email items notated in such a manner can then either be filtered on your computer by your email program, or optionally handled automatically on your behalf by our mail servers.

Additionally, whenever you activate spam filtering on your account, we also apply greylisting as an additional frontline protection against spam.

At the simplest level, there are three methods of spam control which are detailed below. If you have multiple email accounts, please be aware that you need to configure each account individually.

Also, if you decide to enable spam protection for your email account(s), please be sure to read the section entitled "Whitelisting trusted correspondents" at the end of this page.

1. No Anti-Spam Protection (Default for New Accounts)

  • Log in to http://mail.gcom.net.au
  • Click on the "Settings" link (top row).
  • Click on the "Anti-Spam" link (left row).
  • Untick the checkbox labelled "Instant Anti-Spam".
  • Untick the checkbox labelled "Challenge Response".
  • Set the "Spam Folder" field to "Do Not Use Spam Folder".
  • Set the "Spam Detection Level" to "Default".
  • Click on the "Save Changes" button.

With this default configuration, all email received for you by our servers will be sent directly to your mailbox without any filtering or notation.

2. Notation with |-_-| in the Subject Field of Spam

  • Log in to https://mail.gcom.net.au
  • Click on the "Settings" link (top row).
  • Click on the "Anti-Spam" link (left row).
  • Tick the checkbox labelled "Instant Anti-Spam".
  • Untick the checkbox labelled "Challenge Response".
  • Set the "Spam Folder" field to "Do Not Use Spam Folder".
  • Set the "Spam Detection Level" to "Default".
  • Click on the "Save Changes" button.

The |-_-| notation within the subject can then be used by your email program to separate spam notated email. Most modern email programs have the ability to filter incoming items based upon characteristics of the email including the subject field. By creating a suitable filter rule, you can have all email carrying the |-_-| notation within the subject field automatically moved into your spam suspect folder.

For specific details of how to configure your email program to handle email filtering, please check the help system and documentation included with your software. After having consulted the documentation, if you are still unable to create a suitable filter rule, please email with the full details of your email program, including the version number, and we will try to assist you.

3. Automatic Filtering of Spam into a Separate Folder

  • Log in to https://mail.gcom.net.au
  • Click on the "Settings" link (top row).
  • Click on the "Anti-Spam" link (left row).
  • Tick the checkbox labelled "Instant Anti-Spam".
  • Untick the checkbox labelled "Challenge Response".
  • Set the "Spam Folder" field to "Use Spam Folder".
  • Set the "Spam Detection Level" to "Default".
  • Click on the "Save Changes" button.

With this configuration, our mail servers will capture your spam notated email and move it into a special personal folder where it will remain for seven days before being deleted. From within our webmail interface you can examine all such mail by selecting "Folders" from the main menu options and then clicking on "Spam". Mail in this folder can be handled in the same manner as mail in any other folder including the option of moving it back into your inbox.

It is a good idea to check on your spam folder for each account every few days to make sure you don't miss seeing an important email which may have been classified as having a high likelihood of being spam.

Whitelisting Trusted Correspondents

If you ever find that email from a particular trusted correspondent is regularly being flagged as spam, you can use a special function of our mail servers to mark that individual's email address as trusted. This process is generally referred to as whitelisting. To whitelist a specific email address for any one of your GCom email accounts, just proceed as follows...

First activate the server rules option for your account. You only need to do this once.

  • Log in to https://mail.gcom.net.au
  • Click on the "Settings" link (top row).
  • Click on the "Anti-Spam" link (left row).
  • Tick the checkbox labelled "Enable" to activate server rules.

Then, find and whitelist email contacts as required.

  • Browse to whichever folder contains the email item(s) from the sender(s) you want to whitelist. Usually this will be the spam folder.
  • Tick the checkbox(es) to the left of the concerned email item(s).
  • From the dropdown list at the bottom left area of the screen, select the "White list sender" option.
  • Optionally, use the second dropdown list if you want to move the selected email item(s) to another folder.
  • Click on the "OK" button to complete the process.

The above procedure whitelists specific email addresses only. If you want to whitelist an entire domain (particularly useful with ebay.com) you can handle that quite easily also.

  • Click on the "Settings" link (top row).
  • Click on the "Server Rules" link (left row).
  • From the "Item:" dropdown list, choose the "From: contains" option.
  • In the "String:" field, enter "@ebay.com" or whatever your particular case may require.
  • From the "Action:" dropdown list, choose the "Accept" option.
  • Click on the "Add" button at the bottom left of the "Server Rules" screen.

The above procedure whitelists all email sent to you from any sender @ebay.com.

If you ever need to check or manually maintain the server rules for your email account, just choose "Settings" followed by "Server Rules" to access the rules management interface where you can add, delete, and modify rules pertaining to your specific email account.

Alternative Personal Solutions

As an alternative to GCom Internet's server based package, you may prefer to use your own personal and independent anti-spam solution.

One of the benefits of a personal solution is that it can be tailored specifically to suit your own requirements. With your own local solution, you can afford to be more liberal or more restrictive with respect to your handling of email items than we can. Because we need to satisfy the general user base, we need to follow the standard safe line provided by the default SpamAssassin rule set.

A few well-regarded personal anti-spam products currently available are...

Please note that we do not supply support for any of the above packages. All support requests need to be directed to the relevant company or organisation concerned.

Important

If you decide to install and use Mail Washer or any other application which provides for bouncing of incoming spam, please be sure *NOT* to enable the email bouncing option. Because most spam is sent from a spoofed address, bouncing the email is totally pointless. Further, because the email address is spoofed, you will be bouncing the email to an innocent party. That leaves our mail servers open to a complaint of spamming.

Please do not attempt to bounce spam email items under any circumstances.

Scroll