With AOL, a feature that prevents you from reading important mail, but shows you spam in your inbox.

When you eat dirt for the first time and leave your family to build a shack in the woods

A:) A protective barrier around an individual used to block out annoying people. This concept, while started for emails, is extended to more personal means of communication. B:) A more hip and modern version of shit-list

Software that attempts to filter out spam email.
Spam filters work in several ways.

1) IP blocking; orginzations like Spam cop provide lists of IP numbers known to be used by spammers.

2) Word list; Spammers repeatedly try to sell the same stupid products so emails containing words like viagra, mlm, bigger penis, remove me ect; are blocked.

3) Heuristics; In an effort to get round spam filters spammers hire people that do have a brain to create more and more elaborate emails. Heuristics is a way using smart programing techniques to block these emails.

Spam filtering is an ongoing race between the spammer and the human race over who owns the inbox.

Helping your spam filter:
1)Never contact, buy from a spammer or click on a link in a spam email.
2)Turn of HTML in your inbox spammers have ways of knowing if a HTML email has been viewed.
3) Never click the on the remove me link in an email, spammers are liars and it will verify you as a live email address for more spam.