That’s Great but What Can I Do?

Your ISP or email host is already working behind the scenes to screen out a great deal of spam sent your way. Further, a properly setup spam filter is keeping another layer of spam from hitting your inbox. Of course, if this was enough you would have to clean out your inbox every morning.

Here are a few ideas to clean up the clutter:

1. Don’t open it. Don’t you dare open an email unless you know the sender. There could be malicious code in there. There could also be a graphic that contains a script that alerts the spammer that you opened the email. This tells them that the address is good. You are now about to get hit with a spamvalanche (if you didn’t catch my poor attempt at humor, that’s an avalanche of spam).

2. Don’t click the link! That link could call some seriously nasty code or alert the spammer of the validity of your address. Neither are good. (This won’t be an issue if you heed #1.)

3. Don’t Automatically Delete Your Junk Folder. If you use filtering software, be sure the rejected messages are sent to a special folder other than your email "trash" basket. Your overprotective spam filter might mistake Uncle Bill’s chili recipe email for spam. You know you’re dying to know what the secret ingredient is. (It’s chocolate, by the way.)

4. Have a backup e-mail account(s). Use throw-away email accounts from Hotmail, Yahoo or Inbox.com (great free email account!) for everything other than family, friends and your most trusted consumer and business contacts. You’ll still get spam, but it won’t be in your primary account.

5. Make your email address unique. Again, spammers are lazy. They will bombard servers with combinations of common words and names. Numbers and symbols trip them up.

6. Don’t email the spammer to give him a piece of your mind. Again, this just tells him you exist. Further, don’t give out any of your information in any way in any medium to a spammer. Don’t call a phone number in the email, nor leave information on a website linked in the email.

7. Consider using disposable online addresses. This goes a step further than #4. Setup separate email addresses for each individual newsletter or service and forward all mail from those addresses to your main account. Just suspend the use of any address that starts receiving spam and abandon it. Better yet, try out http://www.gishpuppy.com. (A free service which I am in no way related.)

8. Remove e-mail addresses from your Web site. If you list or link to your email address, you are likely to be spammed by address-harvesting robots. If you must include your e-mail address on the site, try posting it written out in words ("example at domain dot com") instead of example@domain.com. That way a human user can understand the correct address, but a robot may not recognize it as such.

9. Report spammers to their domain. Most e-mail accounts have an anti-spam requirement in their terms of service. For example, here is Yahoo’s Anti-Spam Policy: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/guidelines/spam.html

Completely defeating spam is a difficult task without breaching the freedom allowed by the Internet. Policing spam too drastically could make it increasingly difficult to receive non-spam email. Realistically it is up to the individual to take responsibility. Spam would die a quick death if it wasn’t profitable. Don’t allow yourself to be a part of the problem by instigating spammers with uninformed actions.

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