Email spam has become a big part of the internet landscape these days. Anyone using email at all is likely to be getting more and more spam as time goes by. But what is spam, where does it come from, why are we getting so much of it, and what can we do to get less spam? The answers to these questions can vary depending on your email address and the way you manage email.
What is spam and where does it come from?
Spam (unsolicited email messages) are simply emailed advertisements, sent by both businesses and crooks, trying to entice you into buying something, throwing money away for nothing, or giving up your personal information. Spam can come from very legitimate businesses trying to keep you up to date on their current offerings, but it can also be from someone trying to get something for nothing. Phony spam (phishing scams) may even come disguised as messages from legitimate businesses. Whether you consider them spam or not depends on whether you welcome these messages. If you don’t want it showing up in your inbox, it can be called spam.
Why do I get so much more spam now?
As time goes by, your email address gets saved on more and more internet-connected computers. If you are included in email lists, whether on a formal list-serve or just part of an informal group of recipients included in forwarded email amusements, your email address will eventually fall into the mailbox of an infected computer, which will then forward those addresses to a spam-generating computer. Worse, legitimate companies you do business with over the net will send you spam even if you click to opt out of such notifications, and might even sell your email address to others who’ll, in turn, pass it along the same way. Spam-generating computers can also create millions of email addresses every day, some of which will be valid simply by pure luck.
How can I get less spam?
Managing and reducing spam involves several interrelated strategies, including:
1. Ask friends to not include you in long lists of email recipients for fun stuff they forward. Encourage them to include your email address only as a “Bcc” (blind carbon copy) instead of in the “To” or “Cc” field, and practice doing the same yourself.
2. If you do forward an email that shows your address listed in a large group of recipients, highlight and delete that list at the top of the email before you send it.
3. Set up a second web-based email address just for the purpose of doing business on the internet. Any email address you use for e-commerce will get more email, both legitimate and phony, even if you un-check any agreement to receive it. By strictly using a web-based email address for e-commerce, you can limit that traffic to an address you only reference to see if an order is confirmed, etc.
4. Do NOT open, reply to, or click on any link inside of spam messages. That could just confirm to spammers that they found a legitimate email address to target, and possibly even launch spyware on your PC. If you suspect it is spam, simply delete it. If you are concerned that there is a reason to communicate with a business about your account, start from their website or contact them on the phone.
5. Change your email address. Pick something longer and more cryptic, preferably a confusing combination of letters and numbers that does not give clues about your real identity (write it down somewhere if you won’t remember). This may sound drastic and can be much less practical for those who don’t want to go through the trouble of updating their address information with all email contacts, but it will tend to decrease or eliminate incoming spam, at least for a while.
6. Utilize the spam filter features of your internet security tools or webmail provider. Most internet security software packages come with spam filters that integrate with common email programs (like Outlook Express), which can be “trained” to block or allow mail from specific email addresses. Correspondingly, most webmail providers (like yahoo.com) include spam or bulk mail filters at the server that can also be adjusted and trained to limit the amount of spam getting to your inbox.