To counter spam in students’ email inboxes, Boston University scans all incoming messages and encourages students to download optional spam protection software, according to Information Technology officials.

While some students said spam email messages outnumber regular messages in their inboxes, officials said the university provides ample spam and virus protection programs for students’ accounts.

“If there are students out there who do not have virus and ad-ware protection because of the cost, there are free programs downloadable from BU,” said IT Consulting Services Director Jim Stone. “That is the most important way students can protect themselves from spam and viruses.”

However, there is no way of completely eliminating spam, said computer science systems analyst Jeff Ouellette. A major part of BU’s program to stop spam is SpamAssassin, a program that tags incoming email with a score indicating its likelihood of being spam, according to the Personal Computing Support Center website.

The score is determined by key words in an email and the provider it is coming from. If the score exceeds a set limit, the program sends the email to a folder designated for spam mail.

“We filter all incoming mail,” Stone said. “We tag it, but you decide what to do with your email.”

School of Management sophomore Parker Johnson said he was so frustrated with the university’s email system that he switched to another provider.

“I can’t really speak for anyone else, but when I first started here, the spam was outnumbering the real mail I got, so I just switched to a Gmail account,” he said.

Ouellette said BU email still poses privacy issues because the email filters read everything arriving in a BU inbox. Nearly all email providers, including BU’s, may contain an “acceptable use term” — a clause within the BU agreement that allows anyone to read a private email, he said. Dozens of programs view every sent email.

“All these emails are visible in plain-face font and [are] perfectly readable,” he said. “It would be impossible for a human to read all the email due to the volume, but the computer does it very effectively.”

There are many new techniques to reduce the spam and junk email students receive, Ouellette said. Over the next few years, there will be new programs produced to help cut down on spam not only on the BU server, but in email in general.

“Overall, BU’s virus and spam protection is very effective,” Stone said, “but it’s optional, so everyone should be sure to take advantage of what is available through the PCSC.”