How To Stop Spam (Especially If You?re Already a Victim)

Spam. Those annoying, time-consuming emails that clog your Inbox and ruin your day. You wonder: How did it ever get so bad? While it's not possible to completely eliminate spam, there are quite a few things you CAN do about the problem to reduce your burden.

Spam is defined as an unsolicited email trying to get you to buy something. In addition, it's email that tries to get you to give up something: your credit card number, social security number, login ID, etc., by pretending to be a legitimate email. Here are some tips for stopping the current spam you're getting, and avoiding getting on new spam lists.

1. Maintain two email addresses: a Personal Email Address (that you give to family, friends and business associates), and a Safe Email Address (one you use whenever you're ordering something online, signing up for an email newsletter, or creating a profile on a website).

For instance, I use a Hotmail account for my Safe Email Address. If a spammer were to get a hold of that address, fine. All the spam will go into my Hotmail account, which I only look at once a week. Hotmail has a great anti-spam filter built in, so it's easy to see what's spam and what's not. This practice leaves my personal email account relatively spam-free (maybe I get two spam emails a day to my personal account). Some free email services include Hotmail, Yahoo and GMail (Google's new email service).

2. Use your Safe Email Address to send emails to companies who might be harvesting email addresses from incoming emails. For example, say you want to write to a company to ask them about their products. Some companies will harvest your email address from the email you send to them, and put you on their mailing list. By using your Safe Email Address, you can avoid seeing messages from these companies come to your personal email address.

3. Stop giving your email address to everyone who wants it. Does your local bank really need your email address? Does your grocery store need it? Just because someone asks for it doesn't mean you have to give it to them. If it's a non-local company, or you are signing up for a mailing list, then they probably do need it. But it's okay to leave the email address blank when filling out forms. Always ask yourself, Do I want to be contacted by this company via email? (Speaking of mailing lists, make sure the companies you subscribe to have a public, posted Privacy Statement on their website.)

4. Do not put your Personal Email Address on your website. Instead, use a form so that your email address is hidden. However, some spammers use special software that looks at the HTML code hidden in the form to steal your email address, so using a form by itself isn't always the safest route. Better yet, use a free Form Processor so that your email address is never even in the HTML coding on your pages.

The service I use is Bravenet's Form processor (www.bravenet.com). You can see ours in action here: www.bravenet.com

5. Never buy anything that's sent through a spam email. First, it just encourages them to continue to spam. Second, it tells them that your email address is accurate, and they can then sell that address to someone else.

6. Never reply to spam and ask to be unsubscribed. They'll just ignore it anyway, and it tells them that your email address is accurate, which just keeps you on the list. Note: many legitimate emails newsletters and mailing lists use automated unsubscribe links at the bottom of their emails, and you CAN use these to get off of mailing lists.

7. Use anti-spam software, like Norton Internet Security, on your own PC to filter spam as it comes into your email system. You still receive the spam, but it gets filtered to a Junk Mail or Bulk Mail folder, and segregates the spam from the legitimate email. Most anti-spam filters need to be trained, however, so you'll have to occasionally tell the filter that something is NOT spam that it inadvertently put into the Junk Mail folder. Many of these anti-spam filters work on the principle of White Lists (legitimate email addresses that you DO want to receive email from) and Black Lists (spammer email addresses that you do NOT want to receive email from). Learn how to train your anti-spam software and it will work wonders for you.

8. Check to see if your ISP or hosting company has anti- spam technology in place, to catch spam before it even hits your Inbox. Be careful, though, because sometimes these filters are over-zealous and you have to train it to accept emails from mailing lists that you have subscribed to.

9. Do not use a catch-all email address. A catch-all email address is set up if you have your own website, and it is intended to catch all of the incoming emails sent to your domain even if there is no legitimate mailbox by that name. For example, your email address might be mary@mydomain.com. If that mailbox is set up as a catch all, and someone sends an email to marie@mydomain.com (with a spelling mistake in the email name), it will be forwarded to mary@mydomain.com. However, spammers know about catch-all email addresses, and will take your domain name mydomain.com and add common prefixes to it, like info@ or admin@. If you have a catch- all, then those spamming emails will come to you, even if you don't have a legitimate mailbox of info@mydomain.com or admin@mydomain.com set up with your hosting company. See how easy it is for spammers to get to you?

10. Finally, if spam is really bad, create a new personal email address for yourself, tell everyone about the new address (give them several reminders that you are changing email addresses), then delete the old personal email address. This may seem a little drastic, but if you receive 200 spam emails a day, it might be time to time this final step to eradicate it.

You are not powerless against spam. But you do have to take action to fight back. Don't let them bully you into accepting hundreds of unwanted emails a day! Take action now to reclaim your Inbox!

About The Author

Karyn Greenstreet is a Self Employment expert and small business coach. She shares tips, techniques and strategies with self-employed people to boost clarity and focus, create sustainable motivation, and increase sales and profits. Visit her website at www.bravenet.com

high-end home cleaning Morton Grove ..
In The News:

Aigen's Element robot uses solar power and AI to provide farmers with a sustainable alternative to herbicides, working efficiently in cotton and soy fields.
Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.
Cybercriminals accessed Medicare data of more than 100,000 Americans by creating fraudulent accounts, prompting CMS to deactivate accounts and issue new Medicare cards.
China's battery swap technology from CATL lets electric vehicle owners exchange batteries in under two minutes, with plans to expand to 1,000 stations across 31 Chinese cities by 2025.
Analysts at Silent Push have uncovered a widespread scam that uses counterfeit retail websites to steal the credit card information of online shoppers.
Chrome users need to update their browsers immediately as Google addresses a critical vulnerability that hackers are actively exploiting. Additional security measures are recommended.
A study found teens glance at phones for dangerous two-second intervals while driving, using devices primarily for entertainment, texting and navigation despite crash risks.
Security researchers uncovered a flaw in Windows 11 that allows attackers to disable Secure Boot using Microsoft-signed tools, requiring manual updates to protect against bootkits.
Carnegie Mellon's noninvasive brain technology allows users to move robotic fingers by thinking about the motion, offering new possibilities for people with motor impairments.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds an extra layer of protection to your accounts. Instead of relying only on a password, MFA requires you to verify your identity using two or more methods.
Scientists from Duke, Harvard, and the University of Otago have unveiled a game-changing tool called DunedinPACNI. It uses a single AI brain scan to reveal how fast a person is biologically aging.
A disturbing wave of fake agent phone scams is sweeping across the United States, catching people off guard and draining their savings.
Emojis aren't just playful add-ons; they're powerful tools for building stronger connections in our increasingly digital world.
Google has taken a major step toward the future of clean energy by partnering with Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), an MIT spin-out working to build one of the world’s first commercial fusion reactors.
If you create and share art online, you might have seen messages warning that Facebook's parent company, Meta, claims the right to use or even sell anything you post, whether it's pictures, poems, or artwork.
Cybercriminals hit Qantas in a major data breach that exposed information from up to six million customers.
Having reliable, loud, and timely emergency alerts on your phone or device is important because when severe weather strikes, every second counts.
Here's how your daily brew is becoming the foundation for greener buildings.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, are transforming how we learn. But what does this mean for AI and learning retention?
Modern AI data centers use much more electricity than traditional cloud servers. In many cases, the existing power grid cannot keep up. One innovative solution is gaining traction: repurposed EV batteries for AI data centers.
Microsoft 365 and Outlook users are being targeted by a tactic that injects fake billing alerts directly into their calendars.
Researchers are now showing us that old smartphones as data centers could be the next big thing in sustainable tech.
Scientists have created micro-robots for sinus infection treatment that can enter the nasal cavity, eliminate bacteria directly at the source, and exit without harming surrounding tissue.
Let's examine how your data is collected in everyday life, who is buying and selling it, what happens to it afterward, and, most importantly, what you can do to protect yourself.
Researchers at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. developed small robots called "Pipebots" that can travel inside water pipes to find and potentially repair leaks, all without any excavation.

20 Words That Kill - At Least When It Comes to Spam Filters

Spam, spam, spam. It's terrible not only for those of... Read More

The Definition of Spam

Spam can bring down your website faster than a speeding... Read More

Block Ads, Defeat Pop-Ups, and STOP Page Hijacking

You're not alone!Who hasn't surfed the web looking for information... Read More

The Vanishing Mail

Am I Just Being Paranoid Or Are The Robots Out... Read More

Spam eMails Are Not Just Annoying - They Are A Main Distributor Of Viruses

Why is someone from India, Africa, or elsewhere writing you... Read More

Stop Spam: How To Escape The Spam Hell-Hole

If you're anything like me, you're pretty sick of it,... Read More

The War on Spam: Google Fights Back

Google is engaged in a war. It is a war... Read More

Is Your Website Blacklisted?

A blacklist, as the name implies, is a list of... Read More

E-mail SPAM: Whats The Big Deal?

It absolutely amazes me how many people over-react to receiving... Read More

Dealing With SPAM - An E-mail Address Strategy

With SPAM being such a problem it might seem the... Read More

Do You Know Whats in Your Trash?

A hearty welcome to all the spam fighting filters and... Read More

Spam The Spammer - Will It Work?

Spam is everywhere. It's the "in-box lunch meat" nobody likes,... Read More

Email Chain Letters - Harmless Fun or Not?

I'm sure I'm not the only person on the planet... Read More

What SPAM Means: Stupid People Annoying Me

English, German, Italian - It's All SPAM To MeHas anyone... Read More

Sick Of Wading Through Spam?

It's a nightmare isn't it? You fire up your email... Read More

The Trouble With Spam Is....

Each day we all face the same challenge. Spam. It... Read More

How to Write a Privacy Policy

A Privacy Policy can be defined as the policy under... Read More

Avoid, Shun, Thwart, Prevent, and then Filter Spam

Email is rapidly becoming the standard means of communication among... Read More

Spamicide: Man Spammed to Death While Checking His E-mail

Death by spam is now possible with a new device... Read More

Is Email Dying?

2004 was really a year when the whole subject of... Read More

What Exactly is Spam?

Spam, as defined in the context of computers, the Internet... Read More

Which Spam Filter Is Best For You?

With the number of spam filtering solutions increasing each week... Read More

Junk Mail Works!

Junk mail works. Why does it work? How does it... Read More

Spam - Its Whats For Breakfast

The first thing I do every morning when I wake... Read More

Learn Simple Strategies That Will Stop Spammers From Bombarding Your Inbox!

Spam filter is the solution that most people resort when... Read More

spring cleaning service Buffalo Grove ..