[labman]

I received a notice of a Harris interactive survey today. It had this notice:

''Make Sure Your Voice is Heard:
To ensure that our email keeps getting through to you, please
add our email address to your address book - [email protected].
This will help us deliver our survey invitations to your Inbox,
allowing you to continue to share your opinions with us and earn
more HIpoints. Thank you for your membership and participation
in the Harris Poll Online. We value your opinions!''

So how would having their address in my address book help incoming emails? I never send them email, just click on the boxes on a webpage. I don't have any anti spam or virus software as such. I rely on my ISP for spam filtering which does a fairly good job. As for viruses and other malware, my Mandrake OS and NS 4.8 for email and Konqueror for browsing have kept them away so far. Are there filters that automatically let anything through from any address in the address book? That way you could get all your copies of the Netsky virus.

Spam comes in spurts. I maybe get about a half dozen over a couple of weeks and then none for a month or 2. I figure somebody gets around the filters, but then a fix is found and applied.

[ScottGem]

Many spam filters check questionable addresses against your address book. If the address is in the address book, its assumed to be acceptable.