10 Ways To Avoid Spam

Spam, definied as unsolicited bulk email, now constitutes about 70-80% of global email traffic. It has evolved over the years from being a mere nuisance to a severe PC security risk that could compromise personal and confidential information stored on your computer.

Deleting and dealing with spam is becoming a necessary chore. But you can stop spam at its track, by following these 10 useful tips.

1.

Maintain at least two email addresses. You should use your private email address only for personal and important correspondence. The public email address should be the one you use to register on public forums, in chat rooms, to subscribe to mailing lists etc.

You might even want to consider having a few private and/or public email addresses for different purposes. For example, you could use This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it for personal correspondences with close friends and relatives, and This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it for correspondences with banks and financial institutions. There are 2 advantages in doing this: firstly, you know that any emails sent to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it is of a higher priority and importance; and secondly, if a particular email address is spammed, you could narrow down the identity of the likely perpetrator who has purposely or inadvertently compromised the privacy of your email address.

2.

Never publish your private email address on the Internet or disclose it on unimportant registration forms such as lucky draw registration. Marketeers often use free lucky draw events at shopping centres to collect personal contact detail for marketing purposes later. Some of them even sell your personal information to mailing list companies.

3.

Spoof-proof your private email address. Spammers often use combinations of obvious names, words and numbers to build possible email addresses for their mailing list. Your private email address should not simply be your first and last name. Be creative and personalize your email address to make it spoof-proof.

4.

If you have to publish your private email address electronically, mask it to avoid having it harvested by spammers. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it is easy to harvest, as is Joe.Smith at yahoo.com. Try writing Joe-dot-Smith-at-yahoo-dot-com instead. Better yet, convert your email address to a graphics file rather than publishing it as an email link.

5.

Always use your public email address to register in forums, chat rooms and to subscribe to mailing lists and promotions. You might even consider using a number of public email addresses in order to trace which services are selling addresses to spammers.

6.

Never ever respond to spam. Most spammers verify receipt and log responses. The more you respond, the more spam you will receive.

7.

Do not click on 'Unsubscribe' links from questionable sources. Spammers send fake unsubscribe letters in an attempt to collect active addresses. You certainly don't want to have your address tagged as active, do you? It will just increase the amount of spam you receive.

8.

Use a spam filter to detect and delete spams before it reaches your mail inbox on your computer. Most Australian ISPs now offer email spam filter to their customers. You may need to configure it to suit your needs. You may also want to consider installing your own spam filter on your PC. A good spam filter should allow you to detect, review and delete spams BEFORE it is being downloaded to your PC. MailWasher, SpamExperts Desktop and G-Lock SpamCombat are email filters in this category.

Use a white list to identify genuine email correspondences. With most email filters, you could now add your friends' and other legitimate email addresses to a white list so that they are allowed to pass through without accidential deletion by the email filtering system. A white list is simply a list of email addresses that you deemed as safe. Together with an automatic blacklist filter, the amount of spam emails you download to your PC could be reduced to none or just an occasional few.

9.

Educate your friends, colleagues and relatives. Warn them not to disclose your email address to anyone else. Discourage them from mass-mailing you, especially with the recipients' email addresses disclosed in the To: field; ask them to use the BCC: field instead. Send them a link to this page or http://www.tradersnetwork.com.au/scamalerts to educate them.

10.

Change your email address, especially your private email address, if it has been discovered by spammers. This can be inconvenient, but changing your email address does help you avoid spam - at least for a while!