Spam Protection Solution for Most, Can Sonic Do This?

[jeffm65]

I recently received the email below that seems like a good way of cutting down Spam. I altered the URL to protect the sender. What do you think?
Please see below:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
I apologize for this automatic reply to your email.

To control spam, I now allow incoming messages only from senders I have approved beforehand.

If you would like to be added to my list of approved senders, please fill out the short request form (see link below). Once I approve you, I will receive your original message in my inbox. You do not need to resend your message. I apologize for this one-time inconvenience.

Click the link below to fill out the request:

https://webmail.pas.earthlink.net/wam/addme?a=???????????????????@earthlink.net&id=11e3-92b1-294dc50e-99f2-xxxxxxxxxxxx
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

[cdkeen]

You can use the whitelist and blacklist functionality (in the member tools area) to achieve this behavior. Unfortunately the nifty bit to create your approved senders list is not an option. You could use an autoresponder for a specified period to catch senders you might have otherwise missed when creating your approved senders list manually.

[nsmill49]

I recently received the email below that seems like a good way of cutting down Spam. I altered the URL to protect the sender. What do you think?

Looks like an auto-responder to the putative (probably forged, if spam) sender. Consequence is that you create "backscatter" to the victim of the forgery. The second time I got a similar request, I jumped through the hoops, thus enabling the recipient to get his spam, and I reported it to Spamcop.net, which accepts backscatter submissions.

Needless to say, I think it is a bad idea.