Dealing with Spam
We all like to get mail - from friends, colleagues or from companies we do business with. Maybe some good news or useful information? But with email, and increasingly with phone texts, checking our In-box can be a chore sifting through a load of uninteresting or objectionable messages to get at what we want. Some spam messages are so totally ridiculous it's difficult to understand why they do it. But it's obvious that a few people do reply to spam messages thereby providing an incentive for spammers to continue. Some spam is designed just to test email addresses to sell on to other spammers! And some spam messages contain viruses or links to web pages which harbour malicious downloads. What strange people are out there! Here are a few things we can do to reduce the amount getting into our In-boxes.
- Never make a purchase from an unsolicited email.
If spamming weren't economically viable, spammers wouldn't do it. Not only can an email user fall prey to a potentially fraudulent sales scheme, but his or her email address can also be added to the numerous email lists that are sold within the spamming community, further compounding the number of junk emails received.
- If you do not know the sender of an unsolicited email message, treat it with suspicion or delete it. While most spam is usually just annoying text, a spam email message could actually contain a virus.
- Don't respond to any spam messages or click on any links in the message.
Replying to any spam message, even to "unsubscribe" or be "removed" from the email list only confirms to the spammer that you are a valid recipient and a perfect target for future spamming. Linked web pages could contain malicious code which downloads automatically without your knowledge.
- When sending email messages to a large number of recipients, use the blind copy (BCC) field to conceal their email addresses.
Sending email where all recipient addresses are "exposed" in the "To" field makes it vulnerable to harvesting by a spammers.
- Be very careful when providing your email address on websites, newsgroup lists or other online public forums. Many spammers utilise "web bots" that automatically surf the internet to harvest email addresses from web sites and forums. If your business is sales or marketing you can't avoid putting your email address on your web site – in fact you want people to reply. If spamming becomes a problem there are ways of hiding the email address on a web site (ask your web designer or give me a call).
- Have and use one or two secondary email addresses. If you need to fill out web registration forms, or surveys at sites from which you don't want to receive further information, consider using secondary addresses to protect primary email accounts from spam abuse. Often you don't need to put valid email address – just something in an email format that the web form validation will accept.
- Always look for a box that solicits future information/offers, and be sure to select or deselect as appropriate.
- Use Spam detection and filter software (e.g. Sophos) and/or service from your ISP (internet provider)
If you follow these suggestions you should reduce the amount of spam you receive, especially if you also implement spam-filtering either on the server (like Sophos PureMessage) or on your desk-top mail client (e.g.Outlook junk mail feture). If you use a POP email service - choose an ISP that includes spam filtering service.
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