I don’t know anybody who likes getting Junk Mail?

Unsolicited bulk e-mail,
(aka Junk Mail or Spam) is a four letter word. Those obnoxious, unsolicited e-mail messages touting get rich quick schemes, miracle diets, amazing beauty products and pornographic pleasures is more than just an annoyance. For many companies, or even individual computer users, it can be a costly problem.

Junk Mail

Even an individual can spend a lot of time cleaning out the Inbox. And you are likely to miss the one important message in there as it gets lost in the fog of junk. Many great opportunities have been deleted along with the junk mail just because the user didn’t see it.

Some countries even have laws against spam but the practice continues. In fact, it's increasing. Why? The junk mailers don’t care. If they only get a few “hits” they can still make money. (With the traditional junk mail from the US Post Office you would have to get at least 5% response from your messages just to break even.)

So what can you do about it?
You don’t have to be a victim of the spammers. The top three things you can do are:

1, Protect your email address
Spammers either buy lists of e-mail addresses or use software programs that mine the addresses from the Internet. If your address is posted in discussion groups, websites, chat rooms, blogs, social networking sites, etc., the chances are that it will end up on one or more of these lists. Only post your address publicly when absolutely necessary.

If you have to post your address publicly one trick you can uses to fool the mining software by writing it like this: ken(at)dubrovin.com. People who want to e-mail you to can replace (at) with the @ symbol. That is pretty obvious to a human but most of the mining software is looking for the @ symbol.

Do NOT respond to the junk mail. Most spam messages have an “unsubscribe link. Don’t use it! That just confirms that this is a valid address and you are likely to get even more spam. Just use the delete key. Never open attachments or click on links from unknown senders. Spam messages with zip files attached are almost always a poison pill.

2, Set up multiple accounts

Spammers either buy lists of e-mail addresses or use software programs that mine the addresses from the Internet. If your address is posted in discussion groups, websites, chat rooms, blogs, social networking sites, etc., the chances are that it will end up on one or more of these lists. Only post your address publicly when absolutely necessary.

If you have to post your address publicly one trick you can uses to fool the mining software by writing it like this: ken(at)dubrovin.com. People who want to e-mail you to can replace (at) with the @ symbol. That is pretty obvious to a human but most of the mining software is looking for the @ symbol.

If you must participate regularly in online activities where you post your address, then set up another e-mail account. Use one as the "public" address for the general public. Keep the "private" address for customers, close friends and family.

Most email clients like Outlook, Apple and Thunderbird have built-in spam filters that block messages sent from certain addresses of based on keywords that you can define. You should check the online help files for the latest ways to use these features. Using them is recommended but be sure to check your junk mail folder from time to time since a few “good” messages almost always end up there.

The next step is to use anti spam software like SPAMfighter Pro or iHateSpam. (You can Google-up “anti spam software” for a list of available programs.) These programs can offer options beyond what the built in spam filters can do and provide another layer of defense.

Flooded with Spam

You can train your spam filter to make it work better. When you get a spam message click the checkmark next to it and click the Spam button and list it as junk mail. You can report them to the “authorities” starting with your ISP. A number of government agencies and private organizations also accept complaints. Whether they can actually do anything to stop the deluge is an unanswered question. Some suggestions are;

1. SpamCop - http://spamcop.net
2. The National Fraud Information Center - http://www.fraud.org/
3. You can also forward spam to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov.

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