Although Yahoo Mail is one of the most popular mail solutions on the Internet, its spam filters are criticized by many users that are looking for a more powerful service. Yesterday, a blogger reported that his suggestion for more efficient antispam filters posted on the newly created Yahoo! Suggestions was removed by the giant portal that seems to ban all the negative comments over its products. Some time ago, I encountered a different problem that is also a Yahoo Mail bug, the mail service returning numerous errors. It seems like the company really tries to improve its filters because Yahoo was granted with a new patent meant to bring a new technology into the antispam utilities.

"Also, the subscription model enables the email end users and inbox service providers to register with the TED to obtain the trust rating of a specific email sender relative to the recipient. This trust rating may then be used by the email end user or an inbox service provider to filter spam, if the sender is untrusted, or deliver the message to an inbox, if the sender is trusted. A sender (individual email address, domain, and the like) can also subscribe and obtain limited rights to email subscribers of the TED system," it is mentioned in the description of the patent.

The patent was signed by two inventors, Zhu; Jing (Fremont, CA) and Hu; George (San Jose, CA) and was filed in October 28. 2004.

Let's do a simple analysis over the competition for the most efficient antispam mail service. Gmail was soon made available as a public beta, Google describing the product as the most powerful antispam solution ever created on the Internet. I must recognize that Gmail is sometimes really efficient on blocking spam messages, the service redirecting unwanted mails into a different folder. Yahoo Mail was often criticized for its spam filter but the company now plans more powerful tools meant to compete with the solution provided by Google. This looks like a new chapter from the Gmail vs. Yahoo Mail battle, doesn't it?