FIG. 1 is a flow diagram showing the disclosed sequence. The sequence is initiated on receiving a transmitted message and detecting characteristics of the message. In the example, the messages are emails; however other forms of electronic communication, including SMS messages, “PM” messages, and other forms of electronic messages are treated similarly. The characteristics of the email can be the message text, the message text with formatting, images, image conversions, video sequences and other forms of network-transmitted communication. Also included are text equivalents such as a Cyrillic character that shares the general appearance of a Latin character in Latin text (or vice-versa). Some of these characteristics can, by themselves, be spam indicators, such as mixing look-alike Latin and Cyrillic characters. Other characteristics are part of the normal intended text, such as an Arabic or Cyrillic word or expression in a non-Cyrillic sentence.

Other characteristics would include URLs, including look-alike URLs, images, images representing text and other information transmitted in a message.