Q: My Outlook e-mail program has begun blocking newsletters from National Geographic that I suppose some people might consider controversial (the history of the LGBTQ civil rights movement, for example.) When I click the e-mail to read more or to see more photos, I'm sometimes told that content is blocked. Why is this happening?
Lila Smith, Minneapolis
A: Outlook isn't designed to block specific content. But, for computer security reasons, it will block some e-mail images and Web links.
That happens because Outlook sometimes considers an e-mail to be suspicious, even though there's not enough evidence to classify it as harmful. An e-mail may be considered suspicious if it comes from a sender that Outlook doesn't recognize and has some of the characteristics of a harmful e-mail. (Harmful e-mails typically contain malicious software or engage in "phishing," which means the sender tries to trick you into disclosing personal information.) Outlook sends these suspicious e-mails to your inbox, but disables any online links they contain.
Why would National Geographic newsletters be considered suspicious? Because they are mass-mailed to thousands of people, just as harmful e-mail is. And Outlook doesn't understand that you trust National Geographic to send you safe e-mails.
Here's how this type of Outlook e-mail blocking works, and how you can turn it off:
Photos: E-mailed newsletters typically contain HTML (hypertext markup language) photos that are in fact links to the original photo on someone's website. If you click on one of these linked photos, you will be taken somewhere on the internet. Outlook considers this suspicious and blocks the linked photos from appearing in an e-mail.
What to do about it: To turn off automatic blocking of linked photos, change Outlook's "automatic download" settings, add the sender's e-mail address to your address book and add the sender's "domain name" (nationalgeographic.com) to Outlook's "safe sender list." (See tinyurl.com/y6er5ptf and scroll down to Outlook.)
