What is Spam?

Most spam comes in the form of unsolicited email.  Internet users are being held hostage by a small number of people who are forcing them to receive messages they otherwise would prefer not to see.  Most spam is commercial advertising.  Items being advertised can range from products of dubious quality, get-rich-quick schemes that are legal or otherwise, to pornography sites.

One of the most irritating things about spam is that it costs the sender very little to send.  Most of the costs associated with spam are paid for by the receiver or the carrier.  People that use dial-up services are particularly hard hit especially if they are paying by the minute to have to read and delete the spam.  It also costs Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to transmit spam.  These costs are usually passed on to the people subscribing to the ISP.

How to Deal with Spam

It's almost impossible to block spam from getting into your email, these days.  The longer you keep an email address, the greater the probablility that it will get spammed.  Here's a few things you can do about the spam, however:

• Use a filter.  Most email programs, and a lot of web-based email providers offer different types of filtering options to seperate your junk mail from the email you want to receive.  You can also purchase filtering programs to add to your email. 
  
  
• Don't buy spam-advertised products.  This not only confirms your email address to the spammers, but it also gives them more information about you.  You probably don't want your real name, address, phone number, and credit card numbers, etc., going out to people who value your privacy so little that they would send you unsolicited email.
  
  
• Don't click on the 'Remove' link on the spam.  This will just confirm to the spammers that they've got a real live, monitored email address.  You'll probably just end up getting more spam from them.  Even worse, they can sell your email addy to other spammers.
  
  
• Have public and private email addresses.  Use a free web-based email address for when you join chats, post to newsgroups, enter contests, or whenever an email address is required by a third party online.  That way most of the spam will go to those addresses.  Don't give out your private email address to anyone other than trusted friends, family, and business associates.
  
  
• Don't post your email address online to chatrooms, guest books, newsgroups, etc.  Spammers love that.  They send out programs called spiders to search and record posted email addresses.  Once a list of known email addresses is compiled, it can be sold to other spammers.
  
  
• Complain to your Internet Service Provider.  If enough people complain about a spammer, then they will be denied access to the system.
  
  
• Do not reply or forward 'chain-letter' email.  I'm sure you've gotten email with lists of everyone who's been sent that email before you.  Many spammers obtain addresses from forwarded email that has the addresses of everyone the on that email list.
  
  
• Be wary about giving your email address to a website or company that you don't know.
  
  
• Before you give your address to a website, check their privacy policies.  Make sure they won't sell or share your address.
  
  
• Read all web forms carefully before you give personal information to a website.  You may have the chance to opt out of getting email from "partner" sites or advertisers.
  
  

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Staying Safe Online
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