FERPA protection

The University of Wisconsin does not provide a way for students to opt out of all unsolicited email. The University of Wisconsin reserves the right to email all addresses on record when it is deemed important to student experience, health and/or safety.

Students may be able to reduce the amount of unsolicited mailings they receive by invoking FERPA protection. However, this will not have any impact on unsolicited mail coming from external sources. The Office of the Registrar has more information about student privacy rights and FERPA available for consideration. However, FERPA protection may result in problems using some services, such as My WebSpace or Qualtrics, which generally check for FERPA protection. If FERPA protection is invoked, your ability to use these applications may be limited.

Restricting or filtering unwanted mail

You may also restrict third-party email to your Microsoft 365 account by setting up inbox rules: Microsoft 365 (Outlook on the web | Outlook for Windows/MacOS) - Using Inbox Rules.

If you are receiving spam or phishing emails you can find more information on reporting the incident here: Microsoft 365 - Report Suspicious message. More information about junk mail filtering and Microsoft 365 is described in Microsoft 365 - Learn about junk email and phishing.

Unwanted mail via Google Groups/WiscList services

The WiscList service has been migrated to Google Groups. If you are receiving unwanted email from a Google Group you can unsubscribe from the group (see UW-Madison Google Workspace - Subscribe to or unsubscribe from a Google Group) or contact the administrator of the group (see UW-Madison Google Workspace - Contacting the Owner of a Google Group). If you believe that the unwanted mail is contrary to the intended purpose of the Google Group, the administrator of the group may be able to take steps to restrict external mail or remove troublesome users, when applicable.

If you believe the University of Wisconsin – Madison’s Appropriate Use Policy has been violated you may submit a report using the following link: https://it.wisc.edu/about/division-of-information-technology/enterprise-information-security-services/office-of-cybersecurity/reporting-an-incident-to-it-security/.