Fighting Online Spam

Spam has grown to such an extent that internet users have started to suffer from lack of confidence in emails as a mode of communication and even the spread of computer virus is another area of disturbance. In 2003, President Bush signed the ‘Can Spam’ bill, in December of 2003 which is the first national standards around bulk unsolicited commercial e-mail.

This bill stops senders of bulk commercial and unsolicited emails using misleading return addresses which adequate hide their identities and using dictionaries to produce such emails - incidentally this bill was voted by the Senate at 97 to 0. No waylaying subject line and the email must have an opt out provision are two important rules for the sender to follow. The law bans senders from procuring addresses from different sites and violation can entail up to one year in jail.

We ought to remember that large numbers of spam are now arriving from other countries. Since such emails originate from other countries, it is nearly impossible to control them. Because of the global and barrier-less environment in which the internet works, these laws may sound fine but are incapable of handling the problem. So what do you do about this? Her are the top 5 Rules to do to protect from spam.

1. The net is the last place for your email address to reach. There are products called ’spam spider’ which is used for scanning the internet for collecting e main addresses to build a mailing list. If the word ’spam spider’ triggers your interest do a search for this word on the net, the results might just shock you. It is rather interesting that there is a site called WebPoison.org who can combat the menace of ’spambots’ and ’spam spiders’ effectively by sending them farcical web pages which contain meaningless email addresses.
2. Get yourself a software which blocks spam. Check out the several programs which would help you with this, for example, www.cloudmark.com or www.mailwasher.net. It could be a possibility that you wish to go for a professional version simultaneously but even if you do this, install the software as it could save you many precious hours. The software is not foolproof, but they really do help although you will usually have to carry out some manual set up to block certain types of email.
3. Take the approach of having many email addresses. There are several free email address you could choose from through which you could receive newsletters and have another address as a back up. Imagine giving your private mobile number to your friends and your business number to all others.
4. A common problem with spam is that they have attachments and attachments can have viruses. Companies are equipped with spam filters which protects you. But personal email is free country for spammers. General rule of thumb: if you do not know who is sending you something, DO NOT OPEN THE ATTACHMENT. Secondly, look for services that offer filtering. Firewall vendors offer this type of service as well.
5. These days email services can be had with the facility of ‘bulk mail’ baskets. If what you use currently does not support this, think about moving to a new vender. The concept is simple. It starts with some one who you do not know sending you emails. All you have to do is to collect such mails and put then in a bulk email pile and ‘choose’ to let them dwell in your circle. The software used for blocking spam would also use the same guiding principles but when you have a few extra layers it could make a critical difference so you might need to give it a closer look.