Who Blocks Spam More? Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo Mail

Hotmail blocked spam the most, followed by Gmail and then Yahoo Mail, revealed Cascade Insights, an independent research firm, in its report on web mail spam filtering tests conducted with the three giant web based email providers.

On the Microsoft sponsored study, Cascade insights created an account in each of the three providers, along with an unprotected web host email account and provided the mail address to more than 100 suspicious spam sites and also registered at a wide range of locations like fraudulent pharmacy sites, instant loan sites, warez, coupon sites so that spammers can easily track down and send mails.

The mails that showed up in the accounts’ inboxes from November 14 to December 20 are sorted into HAM (wanted email) and SPAM.

The results showed that hotmail is better in filtering capacity with 48.57 percent spam in inbox compared to Gmail with 48.88 and Yahoo Mail with 58.33 percent. The unprotected web host account ended up with 64.22 percent of its inbox being spam.

The results showed that hotmail is better in filtering capacity with 48.57 percent spam in inbox compared to Gmail with 48.88 and Yahoo Mail with 58.33 percent. The unprotected web host account ended up with 64.22 percent of its inbox being spam.

In a response to the result, Hotmail’s group programme manager Dick Craddock wrote in a blog, “Our years of improvements in Hotmail’s SmartScreen technology have led to record low rates of spam in the inbox (SITI), we’ve driven SITI down below 3% for a typical Hotmail inbox, and, more importantly, we’ve kept the number there."

But as posted in PCMag, any study sponsored by a vendor is always greeted with some range of skepticism. A 2010 Yahoo sponsored study by the Franhofer Institute came out with completely different results. It claimed that Yahoo Mail delivered nearly 40 percent less spam than Hotmail and 55 percent less than Gmail.