SPAM - Spiced Ham? Not really…it’s worse than that!

Silly, sick, stupid, Painful, pitiful, preposterous, Asinine, abashed, abhorrent, Mail in electronic form, aka, UBE or UCE (unsolicited bulk or commercial email) drives everyone nuts. The problem is so bad that experts say that stopping SPAM will be very difficult. SPAM is a cheap way to advertise and is a profitable marketing technique, it is difficult to trace its origins AND enforcing laws that combat SPAM can be difficult to implement because some SPAMMERS and their email servers sending SPAM can be in foreign countries which makes it harder to track down and prosecute the culprits.

 

People seem to be focusing more on the problem of controlling SPAM instead of PREVENTION. Unsolicited email occurs in part because people are careless with their email addresses and their computer security. DO NOT USE ONE EMAIL ADDRESS FOR EVERYTHING, especially your MAIN email address. That’s a great way to get on somebody’s SPAM list or lists. DO NOT use your MAIN email address for the online ordering of goods and services, downloading information and software, chat rooms, new groups, blogs or website postings. Unscrupulous people can get your email address and add it to their SPAM lists AND web crawlers can search posted email addresses out on the internet and suck them into the SPAM vortex. They can't send you SPAM if they don't have your email address.

 

Stopping SPAM is difficult, so what you can do is to use multiple disposable email addresses (I use 8 addresses!). Use alternate email addresses (make them dissimilar to your MAIN address) for the types of activities above, then if you start getting SPAM on those alternate email addresses, you can delete them and create new ones. If your MAIN email address is ridden with SPAM, CHANGE IT and start over using these tips:

• NOTE WELL: BEFORE you change your MAIN email address, CREATE the NEW email address first. Then contact all entities (bank, financial institutions, online shopping clubs, credit card companies etc.) that use your old MAIN email address and edit your accounts to reflect your NEW created email address that you will be using. If you DO NOT want to use a MAIN email address for these entities, you can use a secondary email address.
• Do not share your main email address with the whole world. Keep your MAIN email address among close friends, family and colleagues only.
• Check with your ISP to see if they use SPAM filtering on their email servers. If they do, check your SPAM filter SETTINGS with your email accounts. You can usually set a filter to a specific sensitivity.
• Use various, disposable email addresses when you need to supply an address for a subscription renewal, download, online purchase or website posting. Your ISP usually supplies several email accounts with your internet service.
• Use FREE email addresses (MSN Hotmail, Yahoo Mail etc). NOTE: DO NOT use these free web email accounts for credit card or personal information as web based email does have more of a security risk associated with it.
• Keep your Anti-Virus up to date so your PC isn’t harvested by viruses that can steal email addresses and personal information.
• It sounds simple, but do not open SPAM emails or use the Inbox Preview Pane in Outlook and Outlook Express (which actually opens an email if you highlight it), and do not click on the unsubscribe links in SPAM emails. These unsubscribe links let SPAMMERS know if your address is still valid.
• Try SPAM Filtering with email clients – Use the Block Senders List, Mail Rules and Junk Mail settings in Outlook and Outlook Express.
• Use a Tagged Message Delivery Agent mail delivery tool which will send a Check sender email to the original sender. Then that original sender responds back to the Check sender email to the original recipient to validate the senders address. SPAMMERS will not do this.
• Use a 3^rd party email SPAM filter, here are a few reviews - Top Picks:
• CloudMark Safety Bar
• Norton Anti-Spam
• Qurb
• BrightMail
• InBoxer
• http://email.about.com/cs/winspamreviews/tp/anti-spam.htm
• http://www.whichspamfilter.com/Reviews/SpamFilterReviews.htm
• http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1738,4795,00.asp