Spam Cop - Limitations

Limitations

For first-time SpamCop Reporters, the SpamCop Parsing and Reporting Service requires that the reporter manually verify that each submission is spam and that the destinations of the spam reports are correct. People who use tools to automatically report spam, who report email that is not spam, or report to the wrong people may be fined or banned. This verification requires extra time and effort. Despite these steps, reports to innocent bystanders do happen and ISPs may need to configure SpamCop to not send further reports if they don't want to see them again. It is not clear whether reporting spam using SpamCop's reporting service actually reduces the amount of spam that one receives, and complaints on SpamCop's online forum provide anecdotal evidence to support some scepticism about its effectiveness. While some spammers may use SpamCop's reports for listwashing, others could retaliate. Spammers who determine the identity of the complainants can, by doing so, also verify that the email addresses are still in use. What is clear is that much spam email is filtered or blocked by the SCBL, which is fed by many SpamCop Reporters reporting their spam.

That said, SpamCop is effective at helping ISPs, web hosts and email providers identify accounts that are being abused and shut them down before the spammer finishes operations. Finally, SpamCop provides information from its reports to third parties who are also working to fight spam, amplifying the impact of its services beyond its own reach.

It is also remarkable in its own right that SpamCop has survived for so many years, considering the severity of opposition other anti-spam companies have faced in the past, most notably osirusoft and Blue Frog. SpamCop has dealt with attacks by spammers thus far by hiring services from Akamai, but is still the target of many hackers and could face serious difficulties like those faced by Blue Security if it continues to grow in size and effectiveness. The successful attack on Blue Security shows that significant offensive weapons can be wielded by the criminal syndicates behind spammers. SpamCop views itself as an attempt to stop spam without the necessity of governmental intervention, but because it lacks the power of a government or large ISP, it may have greater difficulty dealing with spammers' expertise as well as the large "bot" networks that they control and that they used to cripple Blue Security with a massive DDoS attack.

Also, accessibility to help for paying customers is limited to forums and email; there is no phone number given out by SpamCop, and this can be quite inconvenient when severe problems arise that require immediate attention.