N Ideologics

Research says that nine out of ten emails sent are probably spam. If you don’t receive any – consider it a miracle that will likely end.

Spam is a serious problem that can become quite frustrating for those receiving it. In this post we’re going to discuss what spam actually is, and the four lines of defense against spam.

So, what is SPAM?

• Spam is unsolicited email – it was not requested, welcome or invited.
• Emails that you receive from websites such as Amazon or eBay aren’t necessarily spam – if you signed up with these sites, you’re probably receiving emails from them because you’re a member. Usually, you can stop these emails by looking for an ‘unsubscribe’ link usually located at the end of an email.
• Even if an email appears to be from a legitimate source, it isn’t necessarily safe. Internet email is about as secure as real world mail. Anybody can send an email from any address – it’s your responsibility to make sure the mail you receive is legitimate.
• Emails asking you to log in to your bank account and provide your credentials are usually spam. If an email asks you to enter important information, it should ask you to open up a browser and manually type in the domain name rather than linking to it from within the email.

Three Lines of Spam Defense

1. Avoid giving out your email address to those you do not trust.If only there was an oxymoron for posting your email address where it is publicly viewable and trying to avoid spam – we’d be set. Spam bots browse the internet constantly, harvesting email addresses where they are written in plain text. Don’t let your email address be a statistic!
2. Don’t forward messages, and tell people not to forward you messages.Forwarded messages carry with them a trail of email addresses telling whoever receives it where the email has been. You can bet that almost all of the email addresses are legitimate – and if that email falls into the wrong hands, it’s viagra-galore for the spammer! Email senders back and tell them that you don’t want your email address used in their forwarding list.
3. Download spam filtering software to filter out emails that are likely to be spam. SpamExperts is free to home users.
4. Report spam emails to help close insecure email servers. Take a look at SpamCop.net.

As a last resort, if your spam problem is too big to manage then you might consider switching to a new email address.