Cut Down on Spam Mail
Published: September 1, 2007
Spam mail is a plague that seems to be getting worse and worse everyday. A friend of mine recently told me that he was getting SEVEN HUNDRED to NINE HUNDRED Spam emails a day. He was spending all his time reading and deleting spam.
Here is what I told him to help out the situation.
- Throw Away Email Address: Create an email address using Hotmail or Yahoo Free web mail. Every time you sign up online for something like a forum or free trial, use this throw away address. Keep your main email address for more important things.
- Bulk Filters: Setup your bulk filters on your email client program properly. I have mine setup so that anything with the word BULK in the subject line automatically gets put into the delete folder. You still have to scan through your delete folder to make sure that a legitimate email wasn’t placed in there.
- Remove Email Address: If you have a website, be careful about putting your email address on the contact page. Spammers have robot programs that spider the web looking for and collecting email address’s from a website like yours. You can use a secure web form for your contact page or if you must put your email address on your site, use a graphic representation of your email address. This will defeat the spam robot and keep it from getting your email address.
- Catchall Email Address’s: When you setup your website, don’t use "catchall" email addresses. Only use the ones that you plan to use. Spammers will send out emails to websites that they find to all the obvious ones. (ie: info, sales, admin, help..etc)
- Protected Email Forms: Don’t be part of the problem. Spammers will look for unprotected email forms and try to exploit them to send out their spam mail. Make sure your website web forms are secure and not vulnerable to spam exploits.
- Boycott Spammers: The reason that there is so much spam email is that it works. The spammers send out millions of emails and some people end up going to the spammer’s websites and purchasing product or services. I make it a point to NEVER buy anything from a company that spam’s. If everybody did the same, the problem would go away.
- Privacy Policy: Always check a website's privacy policy before you submit your e-mail address to see whether or not the give or sell customer information to others. Don’t do business with anybody that helps the spammers.
- Virus and Trojans: Check your computer for virus’s and Trojans that can make your computer into a mindless zombie spam emailer. Hackers will put these programs onto your computer and use it to send out thousand of emails without your knowledge. After a while your ISP will contact you and probably accuse you of being a spammer. Make sure that you run your Virus and Trojan detection software once per week.
- Report the Spammer: Make sure you forward your unwanted spam to [email protected]. The federal government is creating a database and going after the worst offenders.
You may not eliminate spam altogether but if you follow some or all of my tips, you can reduce it. After following all my advice, my friend was able to cut his spam down to TWENTY to THIRTY per day. This is way better than before.
About the Author
Rich Agnew is an author for The Computer Geek Custom Web Page Design and for CSSZafco.com, distributor of computers and accessories. Please visit the site to view a huge assortment of Computer Technology.
