Report spam - you have these options

Emails with pornographic content or offers from illegal online casinos - these are typical spam emails that you should report. But spam does not only appear in classic emails, it is now also becoming increasingly common in social networks such as Facebook. But you are by no means defenseless against unwanted messages - we will show you how you can effectively combat annoying mass advertising.

Report spam on YouTube

Mass messages and spam videos appear more and more often in social networks such as Facebook or YouTube. We use these two networks to show you how to report spam.

• Report Youtube clips: To report a clip to the video giant Youtube, you have to call it up and click on the small flag below the video. You can find these in a row with "Info", "Share" and "Statistics".
• Then you will be asked to provide some brief information: Does the video have pornographic or violent content, does it violate copyright law or do you want to report spam?
• Here YouTube divides "spam" into "mass advertising", "misleading text" and "fraud". If you click on "Send" you have successfully reported the video to Youtube. It is now checked by the employees.
• Report Youtube comments: If a comment on a YouTube clip violates the provisions of the network, you can click on the small triangle next to the comment: "Report spam".

Report spam on Facebook

You can also mark a post as spam on the social network Facebook and have it removed:

• Click the triangle next to the post in question. Now "Report / mark as spam" appears. If you click this, the post is hidden for you - but not yet reported as spam.
• Instead of the post you will now find the sentence "Thank you for your feedback. You can undo this action or report the content as abusive." Click once on "Report" and select a reason in the following window (see picture).
• In addition to "spam and fraud", this can also be "violence" or "sexual content".

Block spam mails

Most e-mail providers have generated an automatic blacklist against spam, which reliably sorts spam mails into the spam folder. However, this does not always work, because the senders of the mass mails can always come up with new tricks. Here's how you can improve:

• GMX: If you receive an unsolicited advertising message in your inbox, you can move it to the spam folder after opening it with the "Spam" button (see picture). You can also blacklist e-mail addresses yourself or remove addresses blocked by GMX yourself. We show you how this works here.
• Gmail: There is also a "Report spam" button in Google’s mail account. You can also adjust the filter for annoying commercial emails in the settings, we explain the exact procedure in this tip.
• Web.de: Even users of the email provider Web.de can easily report spam emails. When you have opened the relevant mail, you can click on "Spam" on the left and choose between "delete immediately" and move it to the trash or spam folder. In the settings you can also create a manual blacklist using the "Block list".
• Outlook: In Outlook, the spam button is called "junk" (translated "garbage"). Then all you have to do is select "Junk for ordinary junk emails" and Outlook will automatically update the blacklist for unsolicited messages.

Show spam at the internet complaint office

There is an internet complaints office. This cooperation between the Association of the German Internet Industry and the Voluntary Self-Control Multimedia Service Provider (FSM) also receives complaints about spam. However, evaluation criteria are only legal violations.

• You can report spam mails to the complaints office here. A copy of the email is mandatory.