Perfect Spam Filter?

[#1]

Spam has never been a significant problem for me (tempting fate, I know). When I was with Waitrose I never had to do anything with the filter, it was all done automatically. I have only ever received spam from two sources, once for a pharmaceutical product and periodically I get unsolicited messages encouraging me to make friends with people who like to wear very little or no clothing. No spam has yet appeared on my PN account (member since Jan 2008). I read on these forums of accounts which regularly get hundreds of spam emails a day. Clearly with Postini, PN are making a serious attempt to help users to manage their spam problems, but is this one-for-all solution ideal?
As far as my own personal experience of spam extends, I am happy to manage it myself, and therefore I have not created a spam folder, nor turned off catch-all. Given the flexibility offered under Manage My Mail, have I done the right thing given my circumstances? None of these settings options are likely to make my account more susceptible to spamming, merely to make it more visible if it happens.
What does concern me is what the filters might be doing by default, since I am not convinced that I am not missing a number of emails from organisations that I have registered with to receive newsletters, details of offers, etc. Is this likely to happen as a result of the Postini 'spam training'?
Am I in a minority in terms of the low level of my spam problems, or is it just a matter of time?

[#2]

I used BT (later BTYahoo) mail for 3 years without receiving any spam. Then I started to get spam for my btopenworld.com address which had by then been superseded by my btinternet.com one. I presumed that one of my former colleagues had had their PC compromised and my out of date address had been harvested.
Two years ago I opened two Yahoo accounts. One that I use for messageboards and one that I use to communicate with people and organisations that I trust. Only one real spam message has got through to those accounts so far. Messages marked as spam have generally been bulk mailings from organisations that I deal with.
I think that the Yahoo service is very good and it is not a bad thing to keep email separate from one's ISP. That way when you change ISP, as I did six months ago when I moved to Plusnet, you can continue with the same address.

[#3]

Quote from: maranello

Spam has never been a significant problem for me (tempting fate, I know). When I was with Waitrose I never had to do anything with the filter, it was all done automatically. I have only ever received spam from two sources, once for a pharmaceutical product and periodically I get unsolicited messages encouraging me to make friends with people who like to wear very little or no clothing. No spam has yet appeared on my PN account (member since Jan 2008). I read on these forums of accounts which regularly get hundreds of spam emails a day. Clearly with Postini, PN are making a serious attempt to help users to manage their spam problems, but is this one-for-all solution ideal?

AFAIK, Waitrose use Spamassassin which is what we used to use a long time ago.
As far as my own personal experience of spam extends, I am happy to manage it myself, and therefore I have not created a spam folder, nor turned off catch-all. Given the flexibility offered under Manage My Mail, have I done the right thing given my circumstances? None of these settings options are likely to make my account more susceptible to spamming, merely to make it more visible if it happens.

Quote

What does concern me is what the filters might be doing by default, since I am not convinced that I am not missing a number of emails from organisations that I have registered with to receive newsletters, details of offers, etc. Is this likely to happen as a result of the Postini 'spam training'?

If Edge Protection is switched on then there is a slim possibility that some of your messages may have been rejected. You can turn this off via the Spam tab in the Manage My Mail tool.

[#4]

Thanks Bob, I'll try removing Edge protection as you suggest and see if it makes any difference.