QuickOverview

By Mridu Khullar

Have you been starting your work days with one hand on the delete button? Are you receiving e-mail after e-mail offering to enhance parts of your anatomy you don’t even possess? Are you sick and tired of receiving 300 new e-mails each day, out of which only about 4 are legitimate?

You’ve been spammed! And there’s no easy way out of it.

In fact, Brightmail, Inc., found that one in two e-mails were spam. That’s a staggering 50%. And I’m willing to bet my favorite spam-blocking software that this figure has only increased in the last couple of years.

But while many laws have been set up, the numbers are proof (as is my bulging Inbox) that spam is here to stay. So instead of fuming and ranting, you can take steps to prevent spam, and then deal with it when it lands in your Inbox.

But let' start at the beginning. What is spam, anyway?

Spam is basically e-mail that is unsolicited and commercial in nature. It is unwanted, undesirable and sometimes, quite offensive. Basically, spammers get hold of thousands and thousands of e-mail addresses and then send dozens of commercial messages daily to the people in these lists. The list just keeps on growing, and your e-mail address is probably getting added to more and more lists as you read this. Spam is mostly commercial in nature, but it can also be sex-related, prying for private information or any combination of these.

Prevent it from Reaching Your Inbox

The best way to deal with spam is to prevent it from getting to your mailbox in the first place. That’s easier said than done, though, since it’s not completely avoidable. However, you can take a few precautions when surfing the Web to at least minimize the amount that gets through.

One thing to remember is that spammers use specialized robots that search the Internet for e-mail addresses. Whenever they find such an e-mail address they’ll add it to a list, and these lists of thousands of e-mail addresses are sold to more and more spammers. If you’re placing your e-mail address on a high-traffic website, you’re sure to end up on several such lists and receive the same junk mail over and over.

Your best bet then, is to make sure that your e-mail address doesn’t get into the hands of these spammers. Here are some techniques to use:

• When we’re online, most of us are usually pretty forthcoming with our e-mail addresses. But don’t be. In fact, be as stingy as possible and guard it from spammers and malicious users. Be especially wary of guestbooks or free membership sites. Sure, not all of them are out to spam you, but to be safe they’re not selling your address, read their privacy policy.
• Online forums are another unsafe place for your e-mail address. This includes bulletin boards, web based chat rooms and any other such means. If you have to give out your address, corrupt it in such a way that it’ll be easily available to your friends but not to automatic spam robots. Confused? Here’s an example. Let’s say my e-mail address is FullName@website.com. Now, instead of putting it on the message board as is, I’ll put it up as fullREMOVEname@website.com. Your friends will understand that they have to remove the word “REMOVE” but automatic spam bots won’t.
• Ask all your friends to avoid blindly sending forwards with the e-mail address of all receivers in the “CC” line. Instead, encourage them to use the “BCC” or blind carbon copy option.
• If you have a website, you definitely want to put up your e-mail address so that prospective readers can reach you, right? Bad idea. In fact, more than readers, you’ll be inviting spammers. All isn’t lost though. You could encode your e-mail address in the format that I mentioned above, or instead, you could use a web form. Or, if both these options don’t suit you, consider encoding your e-mail address using the tool at http://www.emailaddresses.com/mailto_encoder.htm.
• I highly recommend keeping a separate e-mail address for business/personal communication, which you do not use for any free newsletter subscriptions or put up on websites. Give this to only a few select people so that you receive a minimal amount of spam. You can sign up for many free e-mail address or e-mail forwarding systems.

How to Deal with the Spam That Reaches Your Inbox

However careful you may be, some amount of spam is destined to reach your Inbox. So you need to have the ability to deal with that, too. Here are a few tips:

1. When you find that you’re receiving spam from one particular source a lot, complain to the spammer’s ISP (Internet Service Provider). Like your own ISP, the spammer also needs something to connect him to the Internet. When you complain to the ISP, they’ll check out the spammer’s actions and will close his account down.
2. Whatever you do, never, ever reply to a spam e-mail or click on the unsubscribe link provided. All that does is prove to the spammer that your e-mail account is alive and kicking and that you could be a potential buyer. In fact, instead of reducing your e-mail clutter, it’ll increase it manifold. That’s because people who respond to spam e-mails or click on links are a precious lot; most people will usually just delete these e-mails. Your e-mail address will likely be sold to every spammer on the Internet!
3. Also, don’t forget to turn off the preview pane in your Outlook Express, MS Outlook or other software. That’s because spammers have a way of tracking which e-mails were opened, and you don’t want to have them know that you’re an active user. You want to be able to read the subject line of the e-mail and delete it.

Mail Filters

Which brings me to mail filters. Instead of doing all the deleting and removing work manually, leave it to these spam filters to make it easier for you. That’s a huge saving of time and energy!

Basically, what a spam filter does is that it “filters” out the junk e-mail for you. The only problem here is that sometimes the filtering software will let the bad e-mail get through and many times, legitimate newsletters and promotional material might end up in your junk e-mail. Nevertheless, find a filter you like and use it. Here are some of your options.

There are many software packages that work in Outlook Express, MS Outlook and other mail systems. The way it works is that your e-mail is downloaded and the program sends the junk e-mail to a separate folder, which you can delete later. You can set up your own filters and rules and the filter is continuously learning your preferences and adapting to it. Some such filters are McAfee’s SpamKiller and SpamPal.

Spam filters such as Mailwasher allow you to delete the junk from the server side itself. This means that you won’t have to download each and every e-mail before deleting it. Mailwasher lets you view your e-mail and delete it, and then download only the e-mails that are actually legitimate. It’ll also let you blacklist, block and bounce spam e-mails. Very handy!

The final option is to make people who’re sending e-mail to you verify that they’re legitimate. I wouldn’t recommend such professional accounts though, since it can get very irritating for business clients, but for personal purposes, it’s a great way to keep the junk out. In this system, anyone who sends you an e-mail and is not on your “approved” list will be asked to click on a link to verify that he/she is a legitimate person and not a spam bot. Since spammers automate their mail sending, only real users click on the link and hence only their e-mail will get through.