12 steps how to avoid spam
By: Martin Reinert


Article with explanation how to avoid spam and many other email options.

The number of emails with commercial content comming from people you do not know (also called SPAM) is increasing rapidly on the net. Recent survey 2005 shows that people think it is declining. The fact is that many ISP companies filter more and more mails and that the number of spam increased over 70% in 2004 compared to 2003.

As soon as you have a website you will most likely start to receive spam sent to you@your-domain.com as the e-mail harvestors and spammers use advanced programs to check for new domains and to send spam to made up email addresses in the hope to get yours harvested.
Once it is harvested they can sell your address as one of 100 million on a cd and make money from annoying you.

Another survey around year 2000 showed that most spam is sent to email addresses that are found posted on websites or guestbooks, and that if an email address is removed from a webpage the number of spam will almost totally stop (over 99% of it will be gone) with in 3 weeks.

This how to article contains 12 general steps that I find necessary to post since many still don't know about them or ignore them.

1) Avoid email addresses in clear text. Example you@your-name.com on a webpage makes it too easy for email harvesters to collect your email address. This must be removed totally. It is not necessary to delete or disable the email address, but remove it from all webpages you have, and do not sign guestbooks if you have to give your email address also.

2) Make your email address into a graphic image if you must post it on a webpage. Graphics cannot be read by automatic computer programs harvesting email addresses.

3) Make the address unreadable for email harvesting programs by typing them as: you at your dash name dot com. Real people will understand this but computer programs do not (yet). You can possible also encode your email address in html code, if you know how.

4) Be careful about address catalogues. Be very careful about who gets your email address. Consider carefully if you want your email address listed in an email address list. In worst case your email can be reaped by the email harvesters.

5) Read the privacy policy. Most serious web sites have a confidentiality policy, which normally is worth reading, before you provide them your email address.

6) Use an alternative email address. Use one or more alternative email addresses when you fill in forms, forums and similar more or less public web sites. I highly recommend signing up with Yahoo.

7) Avoid short adresses. If your email address is short or for example only two characters rs@your-name.com, it is easy for a machine or program to guess your email address.

8) Use spam filters. Your mail program probably provides some settings that can direct the spam to your trash. The effectiveness of spam filters varies.

9) Say NO thanks ... when you are invited or asked to click yes to more information after you have downloaded programs.

10) Stop chain letters. NEVER send chain letters to others. Never forward chain letters. Often they are used with the sole purpose to collect email addresses.

11) Never open spam mails out of curiosity, as the spammers have invinsible images in their mails, that are coded with your email address, so they know exactly who has read their email.
When they register in their system that you have read their email, it means that your email is active & working and more valuable for a spammer. They can sell it at higher price so you get more spam!!!

12) Set your email program up so that it does not display the text and images of emails as soon as you click on it. Instead set the viewing so that you only see the senders name, the topic and the date and if it has any attachment.
This way you do not open spam and viruses by accident.

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Martin Reinert has been hosting web sites and registering domain names for people, organizations and businesses since 1997 and now with the website EasyCheapWebhosting.com. Martin Reinert has been a domain name consultant for a number of years handling over thousand domain names.
© Martin Reinert. - This article may be republished only if this info about the author is printed just as plainly as the article itself and with this note below the article including the active links it contains.

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