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Top 7 tips for reducing spam
by Patrick Silva
Spam, also known as unsolicited emails is the scurge of the Internet. Like
annoying phone calls from telemarketers trying to sell you something while
you are having dinner, spam is irretating, frustrating and takes up a lot
of your valuable time.
Spammers use special software called Email Harvesting Robots to scour the
Internet 24/7, 365 days a year to find and gather email addresses.
These Robots look for the '@' symbol which is the symbol used in all email
addresses. Then they extract your email address, without your knowledge or
permission and add it to their email address data base.
If you post your email address on your web site, your e-zine, forums, chat
rooms or anywhere on the Internet, you are laying yourself wide open to
email harvesting robots and spammers.
Some unscrupulous scum send viruses through spam email that can mess up or
distroy your computer. Some of the viruses that the spammers email you
hide inside your system files, replicate themselves and mail themselves to
everyone in your address book.
Spam is becoming such a huge problem that the US Government is passing
legislation to regulate unsolicited emails. However the US Government has
no control over spam that originates in other countries.
Therefore, spam is a scurge that governments might not be able to control.
But we, as individuals can protect ourselves by doing whatever we can to
reduce the amount of spam we receive. Here are seven tips that will help
you reduce spam.
1) NEVER EVER respond or reply to a spam email no matter how tempting,
curious or annoying the message is. Keep your cool. If you do reply, the
spammer will know that your email address is an active one. Do not open
any attachments. Just delete the spam.
2) Never click on the 'unsubscribe' link in a spam email. If you do, again
the spammer will know that your email address is active. He will sell your
email address to other spammers. The spam you receive will double or
tripple.
3) Protect your primary email address. This is the one that you get from
your Internet Service Provider (ISP.) Do not give out your primary email
address to anyone unless you trust them. If you want to subscribe to a
newsleter with your primary email address, make sure that you read the
terms of use and their privacy policy.
4) Have an 'All Purpose' email address like a Yahoo or a Hotmail email
address to post in forums, chat rooms etc. The email you receive to these
addresses are web-based. You can read your Yahoo or Hotmail email messages
on your Yahoo or Hotmail account on their web site without downloading
them into your computer. You can delete all the spam right from those web
sites.
5) If you have your own web site and have to give out your email address
for people to contact you, you can 'cloak' your email address by
substituting the HTML code for the '@' symbol. This way, the email
harvesting robots will not be able to extract your email address from your
web site.
When you cloak your email address, you can include an active email link
such as 'Contact me' or 'Email me.' When your contact clicks on the active
email link, her email program will open with your email address in the
'To' box.
6) Never ever buy anything from a spam email. The information you give out
to a spammer could be used for illegal purposes. You could probably end up
being a victim of identity theft.
7) Black List every spammers email addresses.
To do this, you have to find the email address of the spammer. Most
spammers do not give their email addresses in the 'From' box of the email
or they give a phoney one.
To find out his real email address, click the 'File' button on your email
program. Then, when a window opens, click on 'Properties.' This will open
a window with two tabs - General and Detail.
The 'General' tab will show you the message source and display the email
address of the sender. But the 'Detail' tab will give you more details
like IP address and the email address of the sender.
Once you have the email address of the spammer, add it to your 'Black
List' in your email program. This is somewhat of a tedious process I know.
It will innitially take some time to black list email addresses of every
spammer. But, believe me, it will surely be worth your trouble on the long
run.
The above tips, if followed, will greatly reduce the spam you receive and
save you a lot of annoyance, aggravation,
frustration and time.
One more point worth mentioning is the saying "To reduce spam, do not be a
spammer."
About The Author: Patrick Silva is a Seminar Instructor, A public
Speaker and a Researcher. He is the editor of 'A Learners Lounge,' a free
e-zine dedicated to inspire and motivate you to achieve success. To
subscribe, click on the link below
www.business-development-strategies.com/e-zine.html
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