Yahoo touts new spam protections

Yahoo is touting a new set of tools it is using to block spam for its webmail service.

Yahoo is touting a new set of tools it is using to block spam for its webmail service.

Company anti-spam czar Mark Risher made a posting on Tuesday outlining some of the new protections that the company is putting into place.

"At Yahoo, we take spam seriously," wrote Risher.

"It's a huge challenge and the bad guys are always out there trying to make a buck with their scams, but we’re committed to helping keep you safer online."

Amongst the tools is a computing cluster which utilises the company's Hadoop distributed computing system.

The cluster consists of thousands of individual systems and is used to detect and filter out spam, according to Risher.

Risher also noted a number of projects the company is undertaking with outside firms.

Startup Abaca is working with the company on new behavior-analysis tools to block spam messages, while email specialist ReturnPath is being tapped for a new service designed to remove false positives within spam filters.

Redesigning and improving Yahoo's webmail operation has been one of the main focuses for the company's ongoing rebuilding efforts.

Early last year, then-chief executive Jerry Yang unveiled an updated mail service that was the centerpiece of a new web strategy.

In December, the company rolled out further changes to the service when it announced a plan to open Yahoo Mail up to third-party developers.