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Top 7 tips for reducing spam

By: Patrick Silva, Sat Dec 10th, 2005 12:41:36 AM

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Format 60 CPL. Word count 812 Copyright Patrick Silva, 2004

Top 7 tips for reducing spam.

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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