Spam is the scourge of email. Some statistics report that over 80% of all email is spam. Tired of getting a screen full of spam every day and having to hunt through the junk to get to the real emails? Try these simple steps to eliminate spam for good.
Keep your email address a closely guarded secret
Don’t give out your email address freely. Only give out your email to people or companies your trust.
Use a throw-away email address for registrations
If you are suspicious of e site requiring your email for registration, use a throwaway from an email provider like Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo. If spam get’s to be too much in this account then just create a new one. One tip – many online marketer have grown wise to the throwaway email and will not allow you to use Hotmail accounts for registration emails.
Don’t let friends and family send out emails to large groups with your email
These chain emails tend to get forwarded on and on, spreading your email address far and wide. If this happens, just politely ask the sender to use the BCC or blind-carbon-copy feature of their email system – this still allows them to blast out emails but at least the recipients (and your email address) are hidden.
NEVER put your email address on your website
If you absolutely have to then disguise the email address but either making it an image (readable by a person but not a web crawler) or type it out, ex: joe at mydomain dot com. People can still ‘read’ and use these email addresses but it will stop the proliferation of your email address to spammers. If you want to get fancy, ask your web developer to encode your email addresses on your site – the latest craze and works well.
DON’T open an email you suspect is spam
Spammer embed links in their emails so they can tell who read them – once the email phones home they know that they have a valid email address and then you will really be bombarded. Also, many spammers will also embed links that download spyware and malware onto your machine.
Forget about the “remove me from your list”
This DOES work from reputable companies, in fact companies are supposed to have unsubscribe links on all their mass emails (even to customers). Unfortunately the spammers have caught on to this and use this tool to verify that they have a real email box. Using the “remove me from you list” link is like saying “here I am, send my more spam.”
Pull a switch-a-roo!
If you are already getting lot’s of spam in your inbox, simply pick a new email address and have your network administrator set it up so you can get mail from both your old (spam infected) email address and the new address. Notify the people who you want to ‘follow you’ to the new address over the next few months and then remove the old email address – now you have a fresh start.
Protect your computer
Always use up to date anti virus software and scan regularly for other types of spyware/malware. Some malicious software programs are designed to scan your address book and other areas of your PC looking for email addresses to add to their owners spam list.
Use a corporate anti-spam solution
If you are conducting business on the Internet, you need the anti-spam protection offered by a business-class anti-spam solution. The best solutions are hosted to prevent your Internet pipe from being choked with spam all day.
Conclusion
There are lot’s of little things you can do to help protect your email address from spammers and reduce the amount of spam that you do receive. I don’t think it is possible to eradicate 100% of all spam, simply because the stakes are high for the spammers and they usually find a way around most defenses. Follow these tips above to reduce your exposure as much as possible.
If you are looking for superior hosted anti-spam solution – we can do that! We offer a hosted spam solution called NetAssure Email Security that will knock your socks off. Give us a call at 919-459-0100 to find out how NetAssure Email Security can help with your spam problems.
