I know what you’re thinking, because it’s the same thing everyone thinks when they hear that claim. It’s the same thing I thought when I heard that claim, over and over. It’s something that’s been attempted dozens of times. But, it’s true.
I wrote a new email service called Port87, and even though it doesn’t use a spam filter, I don’t get spam. I’ve shared my email address all over the internet. Here, I’ll do it again: [email protected]. Here, I’ll even link to it: [email protected]. I’ll even make it the title of this article. I’m not afraid to share my email address anymore. I used to guard my old email address like a coveted secret. I would never post it anywhere. I’d still get spam there though, even though my old email service provider has a spam filter.
The Problem with Spam Filters
If you like your current email service and feel like you don’t get much spam, if any at all, that’s probably because they use an aggressive spam filter. These do work, and they’ve been working for people for years. They have an inherent flaw, though. They’re not, and never can be, 100% accurate. You have to choose, as an email service provider, whether to make it aggressive and put legitimate emails into the spam folder, or make it relaxed and put spam into the inbox.
- Most users will notice spam in their inbox. They’ll feel that the relaxed spam filter isn’t working, and they’ll likely get upset at you.
- Most users won’t notice legitimate emails in their spam folder. They’ll feel that the aggressive spam filter is working, and they’ll be happy with your service.
So, most email services use an aggressive spam filter. If the user misses important emails, that’s ok, as long as they’re still happy. They probably won’t even notice, so it’s fine, right? No, that’s not fine. Putting legitimate emails into the spam folder is breaking the implicit trust that users place in an email service, and it’s not acceptable.
Port87 Doesn’t Use a Spam Filter
Not that it never will in the future, but Port87 doesn’t use a spam filter. If it ever did use a spam filter, it would be optional, relaxed by default, and the threshold would be adjustable by the user. Placing a user’s important email into the spam folder without their explicit decision to accept that risk is just unacceptable.
It just doesn’t need one. When you send an email to my “bare” email address, [email protected], you’ll get an email back asking you to instead email one of my “public addresses”. If you email one of my addresses I give out to real people, you’ll get an email back asking you to prove you’re a human. Other than that, everything else gets its own address.
If I’m giving my email address to a service called “Kangroo”, for example, I’ll give them [email protected]. If they ever leak it, and I start getting spam there, I’ll just block that address. I can change my email with them to hperrin-kangroo2@port87.com. Plus, if I ever get an email claiming to be from my bank to my Kangroo address, I know that’s a phishing email.
It doesn’t even need to make sense. I can give Kangroo the address [email protected], and it works just the same. Plus, nobody is going to guess that email address.
Port87 does have a “Spam” box, but an email has to fail authentication to get there.
The Side Effect is Sorted Email, Too
Whatever you put after the dash (or plus) in an email address you give out becomes a label in your account. That’s how I would know a “bank” email there is phishing. You can even add multiple labels, so if Kangroo is a shopping site, I can use [email protected], and have the emails from Kangroo go into both my kangroo and my shopping labels. Blocking the Kangroo label still rejects email there, even if it’s addressed to multiple labels, so there’s really no downside to it.
I personally have over 200 different labels in my account, and checking my email has gone from switching contexts over and over and moving and sorting dozens of messages, to simply checking a few important labels. Everything really important is set to notify me and/or show up in my Aggbox, Port87’s version of the inbox.
So, I get it, the claim of this article is bold. I really do think it’s true though. Give Port87 a try for free to see for yourself.
Photo by Eric Mclean.