10 Ways To Fight Spam

1. Use a Disposable Email Address

If senders of unsolicited e-mail get your email address you are going to get Spam right away. And your email address is going to be shared with other spammers, which means that over time you can expect to get more and more Spam. Many hosting companies offer the ability to create e-mail ‘aliases', which can be used as a ‘disposable' email address. Use this temporary address when you sign up for a service that you are not likely to need to access again. You should periodically remove old aliases, and replace with new disposable addresses.

A note of caution; many legitimate services such as PayPal will use your e-mail address for future logins, so you will need to enter a permanent email address; but these legitimate services will not share your email address with senders of unsolicited e-mail, so it is safe to use.

2. Hide Your E-mail Address in Newsgroups, Forums, and Blogs

Blogs and forums can be a great way to share your expertise, and possibly get some new business. But like any web page, they are subject to "harvesting" by computer programs, or robots, that scan web sites for e-mail addresses.

You can make it harder for senders of unsolicited e-mail to get your address by obfuscating (known as ‘munging') it. Type yourname at yourcompany.com', not ‘ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ', whenever you put your e-mail address in a forum post, blog comment, etc. This makes it hard for robots to get the address, yet readers should be able understand your meaning.

Better yet, avoid using your e-mail address at all, if possible. Most forums provide a means for others to contact you, without revealing your e-mail address.

3. Mask E-mail Addresses at Your Web Site

Of course you want visitors to be able to contact you for more information. Perhaps you even have several e-mail contact aliases, like ‘ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ' and ‘ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it '. But posting these addresses on your web site can make them available to the spammers.

There are several ways to protect the e-mail addresses on your web site. One common tactic is to use a contact form that does not reveal your e-mail address. Unfortunately, this can deter some legitimate visitors from contacting you; think about it, wouldn't you be hesitant to contact a company that did not have complete address and telephone information posted on their site?

Fortunately there are ways to display your e-mail address without exposing it to spammers. Good web design practices mean that visitors can see and click your company's contact email address, but robots can't "harvest" the address from your web pages because the HTML code that displays the address is encrypted or obfuscated.

4. Report Spam You Receive

SpamCop is the premier service for reporting Spam. Many Spam filtering services used on email servers look to SpamCop to help determine if an email originated from known senders of unsolicited e-mail. Go to Spamcop.net to learn more about reporting Spam. And if you are inclined to become really active in fighting Spam, visit Spam.abuse.net.
5. Ignore E-mail from People You Don't Know

If you do not usually receive mail from unknown senders, you can assume that every message not from somebody in your address book is Spam. Use your e-mail client to filter such messages to the ‘Junk Mail' folder.

Now and then, you should check the ‘Junk Mail' folder for legitimate messages that you may have missed, maybe because somebody's e-mail address has changed.

Always add addresses to your address book when you sign up for legitimate automated mailings, such as newsletters. Most providers give you instructions to do so when you opt-in to the mailing.

6. Pay No Attention to Delivery Failures

The senders of unsolicited e-mail, and e-mail worms or viruses, try to use legitimate email addresses to fool filtering software. If a Spammer or a virus puts your valid e-mail address in the From: line of their email message, you may receive a delivery failure notice. If the messages claiming delivery failures for messages you did not send don't come in by the thousands, it is usually best to just ignore them. A quick scan of these failures is usually advisable though, as you may be getting notice that your intended recipient did not receive the e-mail you sent (maybe their e-mail box is full, due to Spam?).

7. Don't Accidentally Opt-in to Spam

When you complete web forms, there is often an innocent-looking checkbox at the end of the form saying: "YES, I want to be contacted by select third parties concerning products I might be interested in." Quite often, this option already selected and you must UN-check the box to prevent the sharing of your e-mail address.

8. Change Your E-mail Address

If your account has become totally overwhelmed with Spam, consider getting rid of it. This will require an up-front investment in time to let your contacts know that your address is changing, but the long-term time savings can be huge.

There are a couple of common naming schemes for company e-mail addresses. If your name is John Smith, then you might use ‘ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ', ‘ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ', or ‘ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it '. These commonly used formats should give you good options for a new email address.

9. Use Spam Filtering Software

Filtering can be done at the server level, or on your local machine. Many web hosting companies have programs such as SpamAssassin installed by default. However, you may need to activate these services on your web site. Additionally, you almost always need to tweak the settings to get the best results. The defaults are typically quite conservative, to prevent any chance of filtering legitimate e-mails.

Filtering at the server level has the advantage of eliminating unwanted e-mails before you ever see them, and also makes for a smaller ‘Junk' mail folder on your PC. Consult your web hosting provider for details of what they have in place, as well as usage instructions.

10. Never Reply to Spam

Don't be fooled by what looks like a legitimate option to remove your e-mail address from future mailings. In many cases, all you are really doing is verifying the e-mail address for the spammers.

Often the senders of unsolicited bulk e-mails simply send out e-mails to common addresses, like ‘ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ', ‘ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ', etc. These addresses commonly exist, and are a good way for spammers to get their message to you. Clicking on any links in the e-mail can let the spammer know that they have a hit, and that they should use the address again (and even share it with other spammers!)