In common with many e-mail providers we find ourselves engaged in a continual battle to limit the flow of unwanted e-mail to our clients. We believe it is important for us to be clear about what filtering we do and what options are available to our clients to allow them to tailor their mail service to their needs.


To help with this we have compiled the information below, if you need any help or wish to discuss any aspect of your e-mail service please contact us and we will be happy to help.

Primary Filtering

This level of filtering is applied to all accounts and provides a basic level of protection against unwanted e-mail. We use a combination of manually maintained block lists and a process called Greylisting to achieve a 70% reduction in the level of unwanted mail reaching our clients. These measures are applied by default on all accounts, have a virtually zero false positive rate  and cannot be switched off on a per-account basis.

Secondary Filtering

Using a combination of anti-virus tools and Spamassassin to process mail allows us to offer clients a flexible solution to manging their mail. Secondary filtering can be adjusted on a per client or per account basis (or any combination of the two) to provide as strict or permissive filtering as you require. By default we filter all accounts using 'safe' settings which direct mail identified as potential junk to a 'junk' folder which can be accessed by any IMAP client or via webmail. Mail containing viruses is automatically rejected.

Manual Blocking

Occasionally we will block a domain or sender from sending mail to any client on our server. This is only done in cases where we have evidence of improper bulk mailing practices (those which don't follow the accepted guidelines) or where there have been repeated attempts to circumvent our normal filters. The following domains are currently subject to manual blocking, mail from these domains will be automatically rejected :

  • opost.co.uk (using unverified lists/no confirmed opt-in policy)
  • tipmail.co.uk (using unverified lists/no confirmed opt-in policy)
  • bestpure.co.uk (using unverified lists/no confirmed opt-in policy)
  • wepost.co.uk (using unverified lists/no confirmed opt-in policy)

If you represent any of those domains, you need to clean your lists - our role accounts NEVER subscribe to anything.