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Tips
& Tricks about Dealing with Inedible Spam
If all the offers we receive are true, we'd all be rich with a
perfect credit line, we wouldn't be overweight, our body parts would
be perfect, and we'd all be helping the Nigerians! BUT it's not.
Spam today makes up for almost half of the email on the internet,
it chokes your email box along with everyone else. What is it, where
does it come from, how can you avoid it, and can you stop it?
What is spam?
If you didn't request that it be sent to you -- directly or indirectly
-- then, it's spam. But, it's not that simple. You come closer to
a true definition if you use the following; "sending a message
(advertisment or solicitation), to a list of people who you've had
no previous contact with."
Where does it come from?
Spam comes from two main places: spam-bots, and unscrupulous companies
who will sell email addresses to anyone to make a buck.
Spam-bots
Spam-bots are web "robots" - small programs that search
the web for an email address. When they find one, they grab it.
These robots are used by companies who send spam as a business.
Can you avoid them? Yes and no.
Yes, you can avoid spam-bots by never publishing your email
address on the web. If you have your own website, and have a link
where people can email you, you're vulnerable unless you scramble
your email address (there are freeware/shareware programs that make
this easy by either turning each letter into the equivalent ascii
code ie. &97;, or turning your email address into a JavaScript).
Spam-bots don't take the time to decipher the encoded email address
(at this point it's working, that might change in the future).
If you post your email address in a public forum online, you're
free game for spam-bots. Many people work around this by spelling
out their email address like "info-at-mycompany-dot-com",
the spam-bots won't see this as an email address, but anyone reading
your post will know it's your email address.
Websites to can help the spam onslaught by adding a page of insructions
for the web robots that you'll never see, but that the robots are
supposed to pay attention to. This will deter the spam-bots who
live by the rules.
Nope, you'll always be vulnerable to spam-bots if you put
your email address on the web. Not all spam-bots play by the rules
and follow the directions given in the robot file on a web site.
Some spam-bots do look at that file, but then go directly to the
areas they've been told to stay out of.
Unscrupulous Companies
Today, many websites have a check box automatically selected when
you fill out a form to register for a newsletter or buy a product.
Many times the wording is tricky, and you've got to read carefully
to make sure that the checkmark means you really want to receive
what they're offering. Most of the time, you'll want to uncheck
that box and opt out.
Unlike spammers, legitimate companies are upfront on what they're
going to send you, and some of them will send you a double opt-in
email asking you to validate that you really want to get what you
selected at the web site. Always take a look at the privacy policy
to see how your personal info is handled.
How can you avoid spam?
In an ideal world, you'd never publish your email address without
first scrambling it. But that's not always going to happen. Here's
some tips on how to avoid, and deal with spam.
When you opt to receive extra offers from a site, be sure it's
from a trustworthy site that clearly publishes it's privacy policy
or offers specials deals managed by a legitimate company (such
a Postmaster Direct).
Find out what spam filtering options your ISP has in place.
There is software out there that can be installed at the server
level that can trash a lot of spam before it ever reaches you
(this includes viruses). The downside to this is that if they
set theirs filter too aggressively, legitimate email will go the
the black hole too.
If you have your own website, host it at a company that either
has spam filtering options in place, or will allow you to install
your own. If you install your own, you'll need to belly up to
the "techno" bar because you'll have to dive into the
world of geek to accomplish this. Being able to install your own
has the advantage of tweaking the filters to an agressive level
and still have a low percentage of "false possitives"
(legit email that gets caught in the spam filters).
If possible, get a free email account and use that for all of
your online activity. Once the spam level gets too high in that
account, you can drop it and get another. This is a lot easier
than trying to change your personal email address every few months.
An alternative to a free email account is to get an email address
from a company like ChooseYourMail.com
- you pay a monthly subscription, but they let only recognized
email through. All mail coming in is compared to a list of email
address you have ok'd to receive email from. If an email address
isn't on the list, an auto response is sent to the person sending
you the email, and they have to validate themselves through a
special link. Spammers won't go to the hassle to do this.
NEVER reply to spam to be removed from their list - you've just
told them they've found a valid email address, and the amount
of spam you receive will multiply. Remember the randomly dialed
telephone sales calls?
Learn to recognize spam subject lines and delete without even
opening. Many spammers are using HTML and including images and
links that notify them if you open the email. Most of the time
this is a 1x1 pixel clear .GIF that you'll never see.
Update your email software. Many new versions have some type
of spam filtering devices built in. Eudora,
AOL, Mac
OS X Mail and MSN
are a sample of a few. These filters look for common patterns
that spammers use, and transfer messages they think are spam to
another mailbox. Most of these filters are also "trainable"
so you can fine tune what's spam to you. One small shareware program
we've found extremely helpful in dealing with spam in Eudora is
Spamnix.
There's many others that you can find at shareware sites like
Versiontracker
and Tucows
- just do a search for "spam filters".
In addition to updating and using spam filter plug-ins, learn
to use filters (also called rules) in your email program. Depending
on what email program you use, the filtering options will vary,
but you'll always we be able to set "If it comes from.....
transfer to trash" or "If subject line contains....
transfer to trash".
Can you stop it?
In short, no, but you can control it. Be cautious how you use your
email address online, never respond to spam and update your email
program to be able to take advantage of the newer technology they're
beginning to include.
What are we doing to protect you?
Idea Cafe does use a robots text page on the server, and we've told
all the spam-bots to take a hike. But, we can't do much to protect
you from the spam-bots that don't want to follow the rules.
In Cyberschmooz, we've made it so that your email address doesn't
automatically show up when you post (you're on your own if you put
your email address in the body of your post).
Sometimes spammers will even fake a legitimate domain name to make
it look like their email is coming from a real company. It happens
to everyone from Idea Cafe to Microsoft. Remember the bout of spam
everyone got from support-at-microsoft? You can never predict what
unscrupulous technique spammers will stoop to next, but our tech
team is working to stay one step ahead of them.
For more on how we carefully guard your info, look at our Privacy
Policy.
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