Some Internet sites are not genuine, so be cautious before
letting sites have your e-mail address.
If you
have any doubts at all, use a disposable address as explained below..
Never respond to Spam.
Do not buy from spammers. If nobody
bought, the problem would go away. Should you really
trust them with Credit Card details?
Do not click on Unsubscribe links. This
confirms the e-mail address is genuine and may well lead
to more Spam.
Use an up to date e-mail reader. Make sure that linked
pictures are not automatically displayed; when pictures are displayed it tells the
spammer his message has been received. Once I encountered
an e-mail which automatically sent my e-mail address back to the
spammer confirming it was valid! Modern software prevents
this. Luckily I was using Norton Internet Security and its
Privacy Control picked this up.
Please, never bounce Spam back. Most is sent from faked
e-mail addresses, so all you do is clutter some poor innocent
person's inbox with rubbish, wasting your bandwidth and
his.
Robots search the Internet looking for e-mail addresses in
order to send them Spam. So never write your e-mail address
in plain text when designing a webpage.
It's very easy to encrypt the address. I can't
recommend a specific site to help you do this, as it some years
since I used one. Just enter "encrypt e-mail address" into a
search engine and click on a suitable link.
The site will generate a JavaScript which when
run will reveal the address, and is easy to insert into the
webpage. This prevents a robot from seeing it. But it
can prevent genuine visitors from seeing it if, for security,
they have disabled Scripts. So you should also add a message
to the page advising visitors need to turn scripts on if they wish to
e-mail you. Ideally use the noscript html tag for this, so
it only displays if Scripts are turned off.
Even if you encrypt your e-mail address some determined
companies will find it and start spamming you.
Sometimes you have to send your e-mail address to suspect
business. However careful you are some Spam is bound to arrive.
So for your webpage and other risky tasks use a disposable
address. If you have your own domain it's easy enough to
set up a newname@yourdomain for this purpose. When it
receives too much Spam simply change it and don't view
e-mails to that name [see advice on filtering in the next section]. If
you don't have a domain, you might want to set up a special
account, for further information enter "disposable e-mail address"
into a search engine.
There is a danger here. Whenever you filter
out e-mail so that you don't see them, you may
lose genuine messages. In my experience the greatest danger
is messages from large companies sent to many addresses; luckily it is
unusual to lose important messages from individuals. In the
end you must decide which is better: to lose perhaps 5% of
messages by errors in filtering, or 100% because they get lost in
the Spam.
Note this is generic advice. Its application will depend on
your e-mail host, and the software you use. Seek further advice as necessary.
Your domain host should have a policy on what happens to
e-mails which are sent to names@yourdomain which you never
use. I think it's wisest to delete without response all
such messages. This gets rid of a lot of Spam, and also
bounced Spam which has been faked to look as though it came from
your domain.
If you don't have your own domain this option is not
available. However if you find your e-mail address swamped
with Spam consider changing it.
Most hosts do have a Spam filter. Use it. If
possible delete obvious Spam without downloading it - thus saving
bandwidth. Set the filtering so that only definite Spam is
deleted. You'll find the filter assigns each e-mail a
value, which you can see in the e-mail header. That will help you
decide what value to set for the cutoff point.
To see the header in Outlook, right-click on the e-mail, and
select Internet Options.
Most hosts also have a blacklist. So if a company insists on
sending you Spam which the filter fails to identify, you can
always ensure they are blacklisted before being downloaded.
I normally only use this option if they insist on sending huge
files at regular intervals.
Outlook 2007 has a built-in Spam filter. Most
antivirus programs include some form of filtering. Again
make sure you using the latest versions of programs as they will
catch nearly all the Spam for you. At first you need to check
to ensure genuine messages are not being caught, but these
filters respond to training and will improve with use.
And that's as far as we've ever needed to go!
Although our shop does receive masses of Spam, only one or two a
day get through the filters.
However if after setting up all these steps
Spam is still an issue for you, there are various additional filters
available. The best will cost money, but compared to the value of your
time they come cheap. As I've never used them I cannot give any advice on
which is the best.
If your host identifies spam, but you cannot stop it being downloaded, the spam will be identified in
the header or subject line. Write a rule which recognises the words inserted
by the filter, and push it into a special
spam folder, marking the mail as read. Do check the folder at intervals, to ensure genuine
e-mails are not being sent here.
If you have a domain you'll find that spammers fake your
address to send their Spam. They normally use a made up
name at your domain. And before you know it other spammers
will start sending their Spam to that made up name!
That's one reason why I advise you to delete all mail to
names you don't use.
However you can discourage spammers from faking your domain by using the spf project.
This sets up rules and limits the places from
which your e-mails originate. It's easy for Spam
filters to test those rules and identify fake users of your
domain name. I don't know in practice how effective
this is, but there is some evidence that it can reduce the Spam
sent from your domain, and will certainly help the poor
recipients of Spam.
You'll note I've left this advice to the end. Every other
step I've listed here I found easy to implement. But
setting the spf record was a challenge, and I needed help to do
this.
Do it if you can, and you may
find it worthwhile. But do test your e-mails afterwards, and make sure
they reach you! Even if the e-mail reaches you, do check the header, to ensure it doesn't show an issue
with the spf rule.
It's too easy to write the record incorrectly, and then
your genuine e-mails will be bounced.
We all have to live with Spam. We have taken all the steps here, and now can use e-mails without wasting more than the occasional moment dealing with Spam. On rare occasions a genuine message can be lost, but overall we believe we offer a better service and save time and money by keeping Spam from our desks.