| Microsoft's Junk Mail Reporting Tool |
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| Monday, 06 November 2006 | |
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It's not too often I get excited about a Microsoft product. Similarly, it's not often I get very annoyed at them. This week, one of their products, Junk Email Reporting Tool for Microsoft Outlook, got the better of me. Either something is wrong with my installation or they've lost an opportunity. Maybe both.
In the past three months my spam problem has gotten worse. Although it is still manageable, I've noticed more spam getting through on some of my systems. Neither Microsoft Outlook nor Mozilla Thunderbird is keeping up with the other systems I use such as POBOX and Gmail. More email is getting through that is clearly spam. In some cases, the email headers have already been marked as spam by Spam Assassin or some other system. Still, both these programs consider the email clean. When I read about Microsoft's new reporting tool, I got excited. (Note: this is campaign season so it doesn't take much to get me excited.) I've always thought Outlooks junk mail filter was one of the program's weaker features. I figured using this tool could be one way in which I could help. I knew the tool wasn't designed to prevent spam, but would help in properly identifying these items in future systems. Or, at least that's what I thought the tool would do. And maybe it does, but I've yet to succeed in getting any spam examples to FrontBridge. The first problem I ran into was with installation. I followed the instructions and it looked like everything was fine except for one tiny problem. I couldn't find the Report as Junk and Delete button. Actually, that was a huge problem since that's the mechanism to forward junk email. It was no where to be found on my toolbar. After closing Outlook and rebooting, the button never appeared. Next stop free support. My experience with Microsoft Office Online Support was fine. It took several rounds of email which suggested uninstalling the program and using the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility. On the last round, they sent me a registry key to import which solved the toolbar problem. Alas, I could see the toolbar button and was set to go. I knew it wouldn't be long before spam would arrive and I could test this tool. Sure enough, next batch of email and I have three spam candidates. I tagged each item and clicked my junk toolbar button. As you can see from the screen snap below, you can't select all your spam items at once. No, you have to do the process one at a time! Why? I wonder how many users Microsoft lost right then with that error message. I can see many people not wanting to click through for each spam item.  Click to enlarge
 Click to enlarge I'm still trying to grasp the above message. I could see some merit if the email I tried to forward contained sensitive or confidential data, but I'm trying to forward spam. You know…junk. It's not like this is a web 2.0 business plan going to a VC firm. By now, the fun is over and I'm mildly annoyed. I moved on to the next email. Can we say “déjà vu all over again”? I tried 20 different emails and they all show this error message. I can't find an example where I don't get this error message. My annoyance has shifted to laughter because this is so absurd. Could it be the spammers have already figured out an easy way to circumvent this tool? Or is something else going on? I decided to write to support again with my findings. I'm of the opinion something must be wrong with my installation or configuration. The response from Microsoft: “Based on the error message, it could not work due to the mail you highlighted is set to be "Do not Forward". Junk E-mail Reporting Tool will delete the mail you highlighted from you Inbox and forward it to FrontBridge. So, if the sender set the permission for mail as "Do no Forward", you will not be able to use the tool to report it. Hope this helps.” That explanation clears up all my questions and doubts except for one thing. If forwarding an email is a problem, how come I can open the same spam item and click the Forward button?  Click to enlarge So what do I think? I think it's a worthless piece of junk. Relax, I'm talking about the pump and dump stock scam in the picture above. In all seriousness, I think the Junk Reporting tool has potential. I also believe there is another explanation for every email triggering this error message. In its current state, I find this tool is more of a nuisance than the spam. Unlike the stock scam above, there is little downside to trying the Microsoft tool since it is free. Your investment is your time. As for me, I'm cutting my losses. Update: On January 17th, 2007, I received an email from Microsoft advising me that version 1.1 was available. The first email I used the tool on worked fine. I did not get the previous error message. The irony was the automated response sent from
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automatically went into Outllook's Junk Email folder. It reminded me of the earlier incident where Microsoft tech support asked me to send them one of the spam messages. I did and was soon the recipient of an email telling me my message to Microsoft was rejected because it was spam.
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
(Note: The original Microsoft download link has been shortened because of length.)
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 21 January 2007 ) |
