Can Spam Be Stopped?

Can Spam Be Stopped?

Does there seem to be no end to the amount of junk emails flooding your email? This article contains some helpful tips and guidelines for reducing the amount of Spam you receive into your mailbox.

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Did you know that over 95 percent of all email on the Internet is unsolicited or Spam?

Spam is basically any email that you receive into your mailbox that you didn't ask for. It can be commercial (trying to sell you something) or malicious (containing a virus or phishing scam) in nature, but overwhelmingly it is just irritating!

Why can't all Spam be stopped?
In short, as fast as there are new ways of blocking spam, new ways are being invented to get Spam emails through the filters and mail scrubbers. Something that was Spam in your inbox six months ago will surely be stopped now, and what you are receiving now will no doubt be blocked in the near future. It's just part of the cycle of new Internet technology and playing catch-up.

Unfortunately Spam is here to stay, so we need to look at ways we can reduce the volume of unsolicited emails we receive. The most obvious way is to make sure that the spammers don't have your email address. You should treat your email address as if it was a prized possession and don't give it out unless you know exactly how it is going to be used.

What can you do to minimise the amount of spam you receive?

• Do not use a catch-all account (a setting on your email which allows you to receive mail addressed to anything@yourbusinessname.co.nz), but instead select email addresses @yourbusinessname.co.nz you want to use and all others should bounce back to the sender.

• Never respond or unsubscribe to spam emails. It is futile sending a reply to a spammer asking them to stop sending you their junk mail, as this will only verify that your email address is valid and encourage the spammers to send you more.

• Never use your main email address when posting to mailing lists or newsgroups. Always use an address you can get rid of once you have finished posting to the lists e.g. use maillistname@yourbusinessname.co.nz or a Hotmail or gmail address.

• If you want to put your contact email address on your website, display it as an image rather than as text or a link. This will avoid the spiders that crawl websites and harvest email addresses. If you're worried about Spam and your Internet security it is often better to have a Contact Us form which visitors can fill out to request information or give feedback. If you use a Contact Us form you can also implement a Captcha - where you get asked to key in a series of letters and numbers to prove you're not a machine.

• Try and avoid setting up generic email addresses such as info@yourbusinessname.co.nz and sales@yourbusinessname.co.nz. Generic addresses are so common that spammers will always try these first.

• Make sure your email program doesn't show embedded graphics inside emails by default. Spammers use systems that give the graphics in each email a unique name, so when your email program downloads the graphics from their web server they can tell that you've opened their email and they know they've got a valid email address.

• Be careful when you use the out of office auto-reply in your email program as this is another sure way of encouraging spam. If you're on leave or away from your computer why not redirect your email to another account for someone to monitor for you.

• Use the Spam Filtering service offered by your ISP or Internet Email Provider, including the White List facility to allow good emails through. If you find that you are still getting spam emails, adjust your spam filter settings to a lower score (spam is judged by score - the more suspicious the email the higher the spam score) threshold.

If you can implement some or all of the steps above you should dramatically reduce the amount of Spam you receive.

Credit:
Freeparking
Freeparking - New Zealand Domain Names

Tips and Tools images from Flickr: spammed, magic and question.