Avoiding Spam

Have you somehow made your way onto those obnoxious lists for spammers selling everything from Viagara to useless widgets and advertising porn sites?  

Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to get off them at this time pending new legislation.  

About the only way to stop it is to change your e-mail address.  Even then,  I don't believe there is a sure fire way to keep them from getting your new address, but there are some things you can do to minimize it.

1. Never, ever, reply or respond in any way - just delete the e-mail. When you ask to be removed, all it does is tell them they have a "real" e-mail address. After all, anyone who would send out junk like that really doesn't care if you're angry about being on the list. So, don't EVER respond to junk mail. Just delete it.

Besides, most of them use a fake e-mail address, so you can't reply to it anyway.

2. Use your own "fake" e-mail address.  If you have to give out an e-mail address to an on-line vendor or sign up for something, it is a good idea to maintain a free e-mail address such as you can get from G-mail, Yahoo or Hotmail.   That way, if spam starts to get bad in that account, just cancel it and get a new one with a different name.  Keep your main e-mail address for private communications with people you know.  The other one can just be This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Unfortunately it works the same way on line as it does in the real world of direct marketing. Once you purchase something and give your phone number away, many times the place from which you make your purchase then sells your information and suddenly you start getting telemarketers calling at dinner time.  If you signed up for or purchased something on the web and the company sold your e-mail address,  now your address is on a CD with millions of others that's being sold for $XX.00 to whomever wants to buy it.   

To save the hassle even on your "unimportant e-mail address", make sure that to whoever you're giving your info will respect your privacy and not sell your information to a third party.  Check that they have privacy policy that promises not to give /sell your info. Make sure any form you fill in with such details doesn't have boxes asking if you want offers from other companies etc.  This is calling "opt out" and most times you have to consciously de-select those "additional offers" because they often have those checked as a default!   By law, if they're a reputable company, they have to comply. 

3. Be careful what you sign up for and tell your friends not to sign you up for stuff.  You don't want to accidentally sign up or get on a list that freely sells its subscribers to anyone who will buy and they didn't inform you of this.

4. Another way to get your e-mail address on these lists is to post something somewhere. You post a classified ad or place a link on a free for all links page, your address is sitting out there for the taking. There are programs that "harvest" e-mail address from all over the net, so any time you post something, you risk being added to a list somewhere.

Chat rooms, especially on AOL, are good targets for these e-mail harvesters too, as are all the social networking web sites.

5. Tell people to use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) to forward you e-mail. Have you ever received something forwarded to you with hundreds of e-mail addresses in the header? If so, your e-mail address may be getting unintentionally passed all over the net. Tell people to BCC forwarded messages to you so your address isn't exposed to the world.  It's good "Netiquette"! 

Do the same yourself if you send or forward something to multiple recipients so that the e-mail addresses of the other people to whom you send things aren't able to be seen in the header.