WHAT CAN I DO TO STOP/PREVENT
RECEIVING SPAM?
You know
what spam is, and you know you hate it. But once you start getting it,
what options do you have?
The problem with getting spam is this: once you're on the
lists, it's practically impossible to get off them. As stated previously,
spammers tend to fake their addresses, so it's not as simple as just reporting
the abuse to the network hosting that email address (the message headers are the
route to take to find out where the message is coming from; see the information
about headers HERE for more information).
First and
foremost I will tell you that ACD.net is in the process of testing out various
anti-spam filters for our email server. I am currently testing a program
that hooks up to several anti-relay databases (Click HERE
to see which databases these are) with minimal performance hit on our
servers. This will block some (but not all) spam coming into our
network. For example, I generally receive 30-40 messages overnight--around
70 total per day--and since implementing this software a week before this
writing, I get approximately 3-4 messages per day. That's a pretty
substantial bite. You may have already noticed this if you receive a lot
of spam.
Since nothing can block everything, you can also use the
filters in your email program. Consult your software documentation or
online Help to learn how to use these filters. You can filter based on
words found in the Subject line, words found in the message body, words found in
the sender's address, etc.,. Some programs (such as Microsoft Outlook)
allow you to filter based on the contents of the message header as well.
You can use these filters to send any messages that match your filter to your
Deleted Items or Trash folder.
Ok, but even
though you're not seeing the messages, they're still coming into your
computer. You have to wait to download them, and they take up space on our
server and your computer. How do you stop it?
Some messages say "Hey, I'm not spam. This isn't
unsolicited. Just reply to this message and ask to be removed."
Now, I can't stress this enough... DO
NOT REPLY TO SPAM UNLESS YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY CERTAIN THE COMPANY IS
LEGITIMATE AND WILL HONOR YOUR REQUEST.
Ahem. Heh.
As I said before, spammers don't know the emails they're
sending spam to even exist. They just have them in a list. Since
they're sending from fake addresses, they're not going to get bounced
(non-deliverable) messages. They often, however, create anonymous email
accounts and use them as Reply-To addresses (email programs allow you to specify
a different email address than the From: address to receive replies). If
you reply to these messages, you just said, "Hello, spammer.
The address you see here is valid, and is actively checked and in use. If
you send me your garbage, it will be seen." That's all they need.
Now that you've confirmed your email address to the spammer,
they collect these responses and generate new lists, which they sell at a
premium price. Here's a sample of a spam I received several months ago:
===================================\
CHECK OUT THIS UNBEATABLE OFFER!
300 Million Email Addresses (On 3 CDs) + 1.5 Million USA Business Fax Numbers
====== ONLY $99 ========
* ALSO FEATURING OVER 25 MILLION VERIFIED AOL, COMPUSERVE & MCI ADDRESSES
* MILLIONS OF RANDOM DOMAINS ORGANIZED BY DOMAIN NAME.
NOW YOU CAN ADVERTISE FREE AND GET TREMENDOUSLY
MORE RESPONSES THAN ADVERTISING WITH OTHER FORMS OF MEDIA!! ORDER NOW!!
HOW THIS DIRECTORY WAS COMPILED:
* Virtually every other email directory on the Internet was taken and put it through an extensive email verification process thus eliminating all the dead addressess.
* Special software spiders through the web searching websites, newsgroups and many other online databases with given keywords like area codes, industries, city names etc.. to find millions of fresh new addresses every week.
===================================/
So how do you think they verify these addresses? They spam you with them and see if you reply. Pretty simple. So my rule: don't reply unless you signed up to be emailed by this company in the first place. Basically, if you didn't opt-in, you can't opt-out.
So what's your alternative? Well, the
only sure-fire way of not getting spam is to change your email address, and be
extremely careful of where you put the new address after that (see How do
spammers know who I am? by clicking HERE). Customers often ask us to
change their email address, and forward their old address to the new one for a
short time. This allows them to inform the people who need to know their
new address. Eventually they have us kill the forwarding, and their spam
stops. They now have a clean slate to start from....unless they choose an
address that a previous user had and was receiving spam at!