White lists are a drastic form of spam control, and only permit
the delivery of e-mail to an account user if the address of the
sender matches an address on a pre-determined list. This means that
the user will be assured of not receiving e-mail from persons
unknown to him, but will miss e-mail from anyone he has not added
onto the white list.
The more usual anti-spam measure is the use of black lists,
whereby the addresses of suspected spammers are identified, and
only e-mail from those addresses are blocked.
In Hotmail's case, says CNet News, a user's Hotmail account will
open on a "Today" page, on which e-mails passed by the white list
for that user will be displayed. The white list will be made up of
those listed in the user's contacts.
There will be a separate "Mail" section, in which all incoming
mail, including that not passed by the white list, will be
displayed. In addition, the upgraded system will also have a "Junk
e-mail" section, for suspected spam.
Other ISPs, such as AOL and EarthLink, already offer similar
features.
