Say no to spam

Posted on 10 Nov 2009 at 14:12

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Anti-spam service

All anti-spam utilities and email program filters check downloaded messages to see whether or not they're spam. Anti-spam services block the spam before you download it, so you're less likely to end up with viruses on your PC and, if you work on the move, you'll spend less time and money downloading unwanted email. Normally, only businesses can sign up for these services; however, you can get an effective anti-spam service for free by filtering your mail through Google Mail.

Avoiding spam

If there's a golden rule when dealing with unwanted email, it's that you must never reply to a spam email. There are a number of reasons why you might be tempted to reply, but no good will ever come of it. Here's why.

Spam adverts may not be all they seem. Sometimes a genuine business will send adverts out by email, but if you didn't ask for them, the business is behaving unethically and perhaps even illegally. Would you trust such a company to handle your credit card? Do you believe that the software, pharmaceuticals or designer watches on offer are genuine and not fakes? If your only contact with a company is through spam, there are plenty of reasons to distrust it.

Another reason not to reply is that spammers collect email addresses. They do this so that subsequent campaigns reach even more people. When you reply to an email, whether to order something or to unsubscribe from the spammer's database, you're confirming that your email address is valid and that a human is reading email sent to it. We don't mean to offend but, by trying to unsubscribe, you're also showing that you are a bit na?ve, which makes you particularly attractive to an internet fraudster.

Finally, spammers rarely use their own computers. Online criminals often use hijacked computers to send spam, which means that replying to spam will often just send a message to an innocent victim of a computer virus. This won't do you any harm, but it won't help either.

You might be wondering how a spammer got your address in the first place. Email addresses appear all over the internet on websites and chat forums, in databases maintained by online stores and services, and in friends' address books. Spammers can scan websites and forums for email addresses, hack databases and use viruses to read private address books.

There's not much you can do to prevent your details being stolen from commercial or government databases or from a friend's PC, but you can control how your email address appears on websites and forums. Consider using disposable email addresses for certain activities. For example, if you sign up to use a chat forum, create a new Google Mail email address for free at http://mail.google.com and use that to create your forum account. If torrents of spam start to appear in this account, simply change your email address to something else - or choose a site that protects its users more effectively.

When you sign up with some websites to use their services, you'll probably be asked if the company can send you special offers. Look closely and you may also see a request to provide your details to other companies. If you want to cut spam, you should untick any boxes that give this permission. Use a unique, disposable email address as well, and you can see if the company has betrayed you - if spam pours in, you'll know that your email address has been sold or stolen.

Email program

If you use Windows Mail (Windows Live Mail in Windows 7), Thunderbird or Outlook, you already have some anti-spam protection to hand. Even if you already use an anti-spam service, you should still allow your email program to help out.