Protect Yourself from Spam
What is SPAM?
Spam is electronic junk mail. For most Internet users it is a serious nuisance. It wastes our time and our bandwidth, is often distasteful and targets the vulnerable.
America Online estimates that spam accounts for more than 30 percent of email to its members – as many as 24 million messages a day. It is clearly time to take action to minimise its impact.
How "Spammers" operate
Understanding how "spammers" work can help you to decide the best course of action. To collect email addresses across the Internet, spammers send out "spiders" which trawl through web sites, newsgroups, chat rooms and guest books, picking up any email addresses they can find. Some web sites also have embedded scripts which trick your browser and generate an email from you when you view a web page.
How to protect yourself
It is probably impossible to eliminate spam from your mailbox completely. But, following these few rules should minimise your chances of receiving spam:
- Create one or more alternative email addresses for use when filling in online forms, registering with web sites, participating in forums, etc.
- Keep your primary email address private and only give it to people you know.
- Always use at least default security on your browser (to eliminate email capture when you are surfing).
- Always review a web site's privacy policy before doing business online. Make sure they will not share your email address or opt out if you can.
- Ignore it. Never reply to a spam or use the suggested "remove" method that is often shown at the end of the email. If you click, they know that your email is not only a valid address, but the person reads the email and clicks on the URLs in them!
- Never buy anything from someone who sends you unsolicited advertising by email, even if the product is something you want. If no-one bought anything from spammers, they'd stop spamming. Don't make it profitable for them.
What to do if you are targeted
In addition to the above, you could consider setting up filters to scan and block incoming mail. Most email programs have some form of filtering, although some are not particularly effective.
There are also a variety of spam filtering products that you can buy - see some of the links on this page.
However, all the Discover IT Unix hosting plans have a very effective built-in spam filter. This means that if you are using email forwarding or the POP boxes on one of our hosting plans, your spam will be dramatically reduced.
If all of the above fail, contact your ISP. Most ISPs take spam very seriously and many provide their own spam filters. Alternatively, report your spam to www.spamcop.net.