So much spam, so little timeMar 25 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line You don't have to let spam ruin your e-mail experience if you take a few steps to avoid it in the first place and if you deal with it properly.
As someone who's had e-mail since 1991, I've received a lot of unsolicited e-mail, or "spam" in Internet lingo. Here are some of the tips I've used to dramatically cut down on the amount of spam I receive as well as suggestions on how do deal with spam once it arrives. Note: I'm sure many of these ideas can be found in other Epinions on this topic, but none have been plagiarized--I've learned these techniques over the years, either from learning the hard way or from the advice of others. I hope to return the favor by helping those who are struggling with spam now. Strategies for Reducing the Amount of Spam You Receive * Set up a spam e-mail account. This is an e-mail address that you can use but won't be upset if it ends up on a marketing list. You can get a free web based e-mail account from many places for this purpose. Personally, I recommend either Yahoo! Mail or MSN Hotmail. You should use this account for most of your online activities, such as shopping, signing up for newsletters, and posting your e-mail address publicly. You should then give your "real" e-mail address (the one you don't want to get spam at) only to your family, friends, and co-workers. * Opt out of e-mail newsletter, special offers, and partner offers when shopping. On the new account signup or checkout pages of most online shopping sites, you'll see checkboxes that allow you to indicate whether you'd like to receive e-mail--either from that company or "other trusted partners." Just say no! If you say yes, you'll likely receive e-mail from several other companies that your merchant has a marketing relationship with ("A special offer exclusively for [fill in the company name here] customers!"). * Carefully read a site's privacy policy before submitting your e-mail address. You'd be surprised how many ways your information is being used at your favorite sites. And if a site doesn't have a privacy policy, then you should assume that if you give them your e-mail address, then it WILL be sold for marketing purposes. * Enter contests at your own risk. "Win $10,000!" "Enter for a chance to win a 2001 Ford Explorer!" "We're giving away 10 vacations to Tahiti!" And what's common between those contests? They all want your e-mail address. It's not out of the goodness of their heart that they're giving prizes away--they want your e-mail address (to send a newsletter, advertise a product, or sell your name to a spammer). Unless there's specific verbage that says your e-mail address will be used only for the purposes of prize fulfillment, you should use the e-mail address for your spam account (and even then, you should beware, since there's nothing stopping them from lying). * Don't use a personal e-mail address for "paid for surfing" programs, such as MyPoints or FreeRide, or rebate programs, such as Ebates or Cybergold. These programs often require you use the same e-mail address when responding to offers from its advertisers in order to get credit. * Don't refer other people unless you know what you're getting them into. Many web sites ask you to share the e-mail addresses of people who might be interested in their products & services. If you're not careful, you may be inadvertently signing them up for spam. * Don't list your personal e-mail address on bulletin boards, forums, profile pages, web pages, or white pages records. Spammers often use robots (computer programs that automatically surf web pages and store anything that looks like an e-mail address) to identify new victims, er, I mean potential customers. You should always use a spam e-mail address instead of the one that your family and friends use. * Don't use your business e-mail address for personal use. This should be a no-brainer, but I see so many people doing it. It's bad enough that your work e-mail will soon fill with spam, but it's uncomfortable when your corporate e-mail administrator starts asking why you're the only one in the company who's getting ads for adult web sites. * Don't use e-mail aliases if you can't send e-mail from them. Aliases allow you to receive e-mail at several different "vanity" addresses and automatically forward them to your primary e-mail account. For example, if your name is Richard Public, you might have the aliases richard.public@domain.com and rick.public@domain.com that forward e-mail to your real address, rpublic@domain.com. However, if you can only send e-mail from the rpublic address, it is often difficult to unsubscribe from spam if it is sent to the aliases. That's because some unsubscribe procedures tell you that you should reply to the e-mail to unsubscribe; the spammer takes the e-mail address from the reply and tries to remove it from its list. But if you're on its list as "rick.public@domain.com" and you send the reply from "rpublic@domain.com", the unsubscribe will be unsucessful. Your only option will be to use filters (discussed below) to block the spam, so it's best to avoid using aliases at all. Strategies for Dealing With Spam After You Receive It * Use filters... Filters are automated rules that an e-mail program uses to sort your e-mail when it's delivered. Most e-mail programs and some web-based e-mail services offer filtering of some sort, where you define the criteria (such as subject header, sender, keywords, etc.) and the action (usually delete or move to a folder). For example, a common use of the filter list is to put the sender of a spam message into your "blocked senders" list. From then on, any e-mail from that sender will be trashed. Other filters can screen out common keywords used in spam ads, like "rich," "money," "job," "offer," "sex," "ad," and so forth. * ...but don't trust filters. While filters can screen out a lot of spam, they are not unfailable. For example, if you use the keyword filters in the previous tip, you might miss out on an e-mail from your best friend with the subject "Congrats on your new job!" So it's probably a good idea not to have your filter automatically delete e-mail that it filters, but rather put it in a folder called "spam." Then, maybe once a week, you can open the folder, quickly scan the message list, and if you don't see anything important, delete all of the contents. * Consider using a spam blocking service, but only if it's provided by your mail or Internet service provider. Spam blocking services are like filters, only on a grand scale...they screen against a list of known spammers and intelligently filter on spam keywords. They can really cut down on the spam before it enters your mailbox. However, you should avoid any service that requires you to send your e-mail through them for filtering, not only for the same reasons as the "e-mail alias" issue I mention above, but also because it adds yet another "middleman" that can delay your e-mail. * Unsubscribe from mailing lists periodically.... More and more laws are requiring unsolicited commercial e-mail to offer a free and immediate way to stop receiving future communications. Check the bottom of spam messages to see if there are instructions on how to remove yourself from their mailing list. Typically, you either have to click on a link in the e-mail or send an unsubscribe request to the sender. * ...but only subscribe from reputable companies to avoid even more spam. A particularly nefarious spamming technique is to sell the e-mail addresses of people who ask to be removed, since it indicates that there's a live person behind the address. I usually only unsubscribe from e-mail that I've requested, such as sales offers from name-brand merchants, since I know they wouldn't dare do something like that. For the run-of-the-mill spammer that you don't know anyting about, I'd recommend using filters to deal with e-mails from them. * Avoid "baited" subject lines. You should immediately delete any ambigous subject line from anyone you don't know. Examples: "Remember me?", "Hello!", "A special offer," "Information you requested", "A joke", "(no subject)", etc. They are tempting to open, but they are almost always spam, and may even contain a virus. * Don't forward chain e-mails. This is an excellent way for a spammer to get your e-mail address and the addresses of all of your friends too if it falls into his hands. Anyone who's received a chain letter can attest to the dozens, if not hundreds of e-mails that it contains. * Don't waste your time retaliating against spammers. 99% of the time, they don't care and won't even respond. They're certainly not going to stop sending spam on account of your complaint. Most spammers view themselves as the online equivalent of direct mail advertisers, thus they're not doing anything wrong. If anything, you're likely to get in trouble legally, especially if you threaten them or do anything foolish (like sending hundreds of copies of the spam back to them, especially since the return address is usually bogus to begin with). The best thing to do is to delete the offending e-mail, take steps to block it in the future, and go on with your life. * Know what your e-mail provider or ISP's policy on incoming spam. Some providers are more helpful than others when it comes to unsolicited e-mail, especially since it's expensive for them to process and store. Some may assist you in tracking down the offender and working with the spammer's ISP to end the spamming activity. Others may want you to forward a copy of the spam so they can improve their spam blocking service. And still others may not care about spam at all--in which case, it's better to know that they won't help you before you decide to ask them for help. * Relax! Above all, don't get bent out of shape when you receive unsolicited e-mail. Yes, you shouldn't have to screen your e-mail, but it's an unfortunate fact of modern life, just like junk mail in the postal world. The goal should be to minimize the intrusion of spam into your communications world without stressing you out. Hopefully these suggestions have been helpful to you. If you have some suggestions or comments on this Epinion, please feel free to e-mail me (I'm following my own advice and using a spam e-mail account) or leave a comment below. Thanks!  |
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