What is Spam?

Spam is unwanted email, usually advertisements, that find its way into your Inbox.

Unfortunately, there is no one foolproof way to eliminate it. But there are some steps you can take to help reduce how much makes it into your view.

How do spammers get your email address in the first place?

Pretty much, they get your address by

1. Running programs that collect email addresses out of Usenet posting headers

2. Culling them from subscriber lists (such as AOL’s Member Profile list)

3. Harvesting them from HTML documents (web pages)

4. Ripping them out of online “white pages” directories

5. Buying a list of email addresses from someone who already has one

6. Taking them from you without your knowledge when you visit their web site.

7. Collecting member names from online “chat rooms.”

Obviously, anything you can do to hide your email address from spammers will greatly diminish the amount of new spam you will receive in the future.

Plans for Prevention

AVOIDANCE

The best way to combat spam is to avoid giving out your address. While most reputable businesses will not sell your email information (you can look for a privacy policy if you aren’t sure), once your address is in the hands of the wrong person, it will make its rounds on the spam circuit swiftly and surely. If you must put in an email address to access a web site, use a “throw-away” address from Hotmail or Yahoo or use anyword@example.com (or example.net or example.org). These fake addresses can protect your more important addresses.

Since spammers harvest email addresses from public places like websites and newsgroups. Avoid putting your email address on the web, if possible.

Any reply sent to a spammer indicates that their spam is getting through and getting read by a person. This includes the”opt-out” request that is often at the end of a spam message. They don’t have to comply with your requests that they remove you from their lists. This is just another indication that their email is getting read by a person.

FILTERING

Since you cannot stop all of the messages, you can at least set up a filter for them. You can create your own filters, use your email package’s built-in filters and/or purchase third-party filters for many of the common email client packages.

Using Built-in Filters

Many email packages contain junk mail filters that try to identify junk mail based on filters already created. You can also “train” these packages so they become more effective at correctly identifying the spam. They are not 100% effective and can also filter out legitimate messages.

In Outlook, you can turn on the Junk Mail Filter by going to Tools — > Organize and then selecting the Junk Mail option on the right of the frame. There are two options, you can color the messages in the Inbox or you can move the messages that are identified as spam into a Junk E-mail folder.

Creating Your Own Filters

Most email packages allow you to create filters that will take action on a message based on criteria that you select such as keywords in the body, subject, or the From field.

In Outlook, filters are called “rules.” You can create rules from the Tools –> Rules Wizard dialog box

Using a Third-party Filter

You can also purchase spam filters that work with your email package. Some of these include:

• MailWasher http://www.mailwasher.net/ (free version and pro version $30 plus $10/year for updates)

• McAfee SpamKiller http://www.mcafee.com ($40 plus annual update)

• IhateSpam for Outlook http://www.ihatespam.us ($20)

Helpful Resources

Spam Abuse – http://www.spam.abuse.net

Spam Tips and Tricks from About.com – http://email.about.com/cs/spamfightingtips/

How to Get Rid of Junk Mail, Spam and Telemarketers – http://www.ecofuture.org/jnkmail.html

Coalition Against Unsolicited Email – http://www.cauce.org/