Fight Spam - Preferences & Security



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Spam: Protect yourself from objectionable communications!
To 'spam' means to send unsolicited and usually commercial or objectionable communications. These messages are typically sent to a large number of recipients. While ICQ is an avid supporter of free speech and communication, we are also dedicated to providing users with features that minimize exposure to spam.

Important Notice: ICQ staff will never ask you for your password, or ask you by email to send information to ICQ or to forward messages to others. If we have any announcement to our users, they will be posted on the ICQ Web site.

In this section we help you:

		Anti-Spam Filter
		Block World Wide Pager/Email Express Messages
		Ignore Messages From Contacts or Other Users
		Accept Messages Only From Your Contacts
		Report a Spammer

ICQ is an avid supporter of free speech and communication between people and has created the ICQ network with this vision. While caring for freedom of speech, ICQ is also very dedicated to user privacy, and so keeps developing and offering its users privacy tools and features that each user can set in order to sustain the privacy level they seek. In doing so ICQ allows each user to define what they conceive as spam, a definition that may vary from one user to another.

ICQ continues its effort to minimize spam. In dealing with its users, ICQ employs strict policies relating to abuse of the ICQ network by any ICQ user. These policies are changed from time to time to meet the ever-changing needs of the growing ICQ community. They are not disclosed in order to avoid their abuse.

Following are some of the privacy tools integrated into ICQ 4.0:

Anti-Spam Filter

The Anti-Spam Filter (activated by default) can help you avoid spam by blocking non-Contact List messages that include content which might be objectionable.

Note: The Anti-Spam Filter starts to work automatically when you receive a message from a non-Contact List user. Accepting non-Contact List messages is the default ICQ setting in the Preferences & Security menu (under General). Learn how to accept messages only from friends on your Contact List.

To activate/deactivate this service, click Main -> Spam Control. From the Not in List Messages pane, check/uncheck the Apply ICQ Anti-Spam filter when receiving messages from users not on my Contact List checkbox.

Accept Messages ONLY From Your Contacts

By automatically setting ICQ 4.0 to ignore messages from people who are not on your Contact List, you can filter out a large percentage of spam.

Click Main -> Spam Control.
Check the box Accept messages only from users on my Contact List.
Click OK to save your settings and close the window, Apply to change your settings and keep the window open, or Cancel to discard your changes and exit the window.

Note: To ensure that your authorization is required before a user can add you to their Contact List, from Main -> Preferences & Security -> General, select My authorization is required before users add me to their Contact List radio button.

Block World Wide Pager/Email Express Messages

You can also block spammers by filtering the types of messages you never want to receive.
To activate this service, click Main -> Spam Control

To minimize the bulk messaging you receive, check the Do not accept World Wide Pager Messages and/or the Do not accept EmailExpress Messages boxes.
Click OK to save your settings and close the window, Apply to change your settings and keep the window open, or Cancel to discard your changes and exit the window.

Ignore Messages From Contacts or Other Users

ICQ enables you to control which users you wish to receive events from and which you prefer to ignore. If you receive unwanted spam messages from a specific user, adding his/her ICQ# to your ignore list will keep their messages from being displayed to you, and the sender will not be aware of it.

To activate this service:

Click Main -> Preferences & Security -> Ignore List (under Security)
Click Add To Ignore List.
The Search for users to add to your Ignore List box will open. Search by ICQ number, Email, name or SMS by clicking the appropriate radio button, filling in the details, and choosing Search.
Select the user from the list of results that appear in the lower pane. Double-click the user's name you would like to ignore. A notice will appear letting you know the user you want to ignore has been added to your Ignore List. Click OK.

Tip: If the spammer is on your Contact List, the quickest way to ignore them is to drag their name from your Contact List directly into your Ignore List.

Note: The Ignore List option does not fully apply to ICQ SMS messages.

Report a Spammer:

Non-Contact List Message Warning

By default, when a non-Contact List user sends you a message, you will see the Incoming message from User not on your Contact List dialog box. This warning will be displayed for every message you receive from a user that is not in your Contact List.
From the Incoming message from User not on your Contact List message:

Click Accept Message to close the warning and accept the message. When the message displays, the user who sent the message will be added to the Not in List section of your Contact List.
Click Decline Message to close the warning and reject the message.

Report Spam To ICQ

If you accept a message from a non-Contact List user and then discover it's spam, you can still do something - report the user who sent you the message to ICQ. In the message window you receive from the spammer, click the Report Spam button.

If you have closed the non-Contact List message and would like to report the spammer to ICQ, you still can, if the user is still in the Not In List group of your Contact List.

Open a new message to the user. Within the message window, you will once again see the Report Spam button.
Click the button - this will report the user as a spammer to ICQ!

If you wish to deactivate the non-Contect List message warning, click Main -> Spam Control. Within the Not in List Messages pane, check/uncheck the Display the Accept Message dialog when receiving messages from users not on my Contact List checkbox.

Anti-Spam Efforts

We continuously work to reduce the exposure of ICQ users to spamming on the ICQ network. However, it is also in your hands to set your ICQ privacy features to this end. Next time you receive or read such messages, you may want to consider resetting your privacy tools to avoid receipt of these kinds of events in the future.

You may also be interested to know that, as part of the AOL family, ICQ actively supports AOL's larger efforts towards eliminating spam on the web. For more information on these efforts, go to http://legal.web.aol.com/resources/legislation/email.html.


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