Spam filters are responsible for deleting a high
percentage of legitimate business emails from
people who have no wish to spam. Here are some
tips to avoid spam complaints in your emails or
ezine.
Avoid the following triggers in your emails.
1. Excessive use of ALL CAPITALS in the subject line and body of your email.
2. The use of words like “free”(used alone or in combination with words like “trial”,”money”, “quote”, “sample”, “membership”, “access” etc.) Other more obvious word to avoid include “sex”, “XXX”,”spam”, “$$$”, “checks”, “money”, “extra income”, “as seen on TV”. Even seemingly harmless word such as “search engine listings”, “cable converter”, and “reverses aging” will get you in trouble.
3. Excessive use of exclamation marks “!!!”
Tips for Staying on the Right Side of Spam Filters
1. Use words like “news”, “newsletter”, “list” in your subject line.
2. Say how often your ezine is published in the subject line - weekly, monthly.
3. Put date of newsletter in subject line.
4. Put issue number in the subject line.
5. Ensure your newsletter is a proper ezine with some substance in the text.
To help identify spam in your emails/ezines use the
following spam checker always before you send
anything out.
http://www.merchant-account-service.com/stop_spam_mail.html
Above all, use your common sense. We know what spam
looks like, so avoid anything that resembles it in
your ezine.
(C) John Lynch
For a free spam test on your emails or ezines go to:
http://www.merchant-account-service.com/stop_spam_mail.html
Unless the filters on your computer are really good, you’re getting at least an occasional SPAM message in your email Inbox. For most of us, we spend more time sorting through and deleting the SPAM than we care to. In fact, my husband told me tonight that of 30 messages he receives each day on our home computer 29 of them are SPAM.
Sometimes SPAM messages are easily identifiable by their subject lines. Sometimes the senders disguise the messages by using what appear to be either business-related subjects or subjects that imply a personal relationship has already been established. Either way, we know it’s risky to open these messages-because of their content and because of potential viruses.
We’re in the business of doing business. To maintain solid relationships with our clients and peers, writing an accurate and descriptive subject line for each email we send is critical to making our readers’ lives easier and their work more efficient. Accurate subject lines not only reflect the content of the message; they also serve as a focus statement so the reader can begin gathering information right away.
I was reminded recently of the importance of the accurate subject line. I’d contacted a company regarding cell phone service and asked that a sales representative contact me. I received an email some days later from a sales rep that had in the subject line just this one word: “hello.” Normally I wouldn’t open this message. But for some reason I did and found that it was from the person I was eagerly awaiting a response.
All readers, you and me included, approach each email we read with the same question in mind: “What’s this about?” We want that question answered immediately. When the writer of the email or document fails to anticipate our question and postpones the answer, most of us become impatient. Our time is precious and each moment valuable. We don’t want to waste it searching for the answer to that question. Nor do we want to run the risk of opening an email that will infect our computers.
When we give an accurate subject line, we begin to answer the question “What’s this about?” Our readers appreciate knowing how to focus their reading and also feel more confident opening emails presented this way.
Help yourself and your readers by being very descriptive in your email subject lines. This is particularly important if you don’t have a previous relationship established with the reader. Even if you do, you have probably already experienced how clever and deceptive SPAMers can be.
For an idea of how you can begin to tailor your subject lines to meet your readers’ needs,
Instead of a subject line that just says “Report”
Try: “Report on (title of report) dated (insert date) for (client)”
Instead of a subject line that says “Hello”
Try: (Your company name)… (specific reason for writing)
Instead of: “Following up”
Try: Our meeting at X company on …
In other words, be as descriptive as possible, making as many connections as you can to previous contact or work you’ve done with the reader. If the sales person that contacted me had put in the subject line: “your request for XYZ Company phone service upgrades” I’d not have had ANY questions whatsoever about opening his email.
We can’t afford to be cavalier, coy, or questionable in our emails. Giving our readers an accurate, descriptive, and informative subject line helps our readers feel more confident in opening our messages, more receptive to our content, and more willing to respond when we answer the question “What’s this about.”
About the Author:
Dr. Tracy Peterson Turner works with organizations that want to turn their managers into leaders and with leaders who want to get their messages heard. She is an expert in both written and verbal communication and conducts presentations and workshops to help individuals and corporations meet their communication goals.
Visit Tracy on the web at http://www.Mgr-Impact.com. Email her at Tracy@Mgr-Impact.com
LexisNexis, a provider of personal and financial data, recently reported that the personal information of as many as 310,000 people nationwide may have been stolen. This figure is nearly 10 times higher than the original figure disclosed last month by the company.
ChoicePoint Inc., another consumer data collection service, stated 145,000 people in their database were possibly exposed to identity thieves earlier this year. At DSW Shoe Warehouse, officials acknowledged stolen credit information at 103 of its 175 stores nationwide. Hackers have also targeted databases at California State University as well as the University of California, San Diego.
Many consumers now fear that using the internet puts them at a higher risk of identity theft. However, surveys have shown that only 10 percent of known identity theft cases have resulted from online fraud. Dumpster diving along with phone scams account for far more ID theft than the internet.
In fact you can use the internet to help protect yourself from this crime in three unique ways:
1) View your banking and credit accounts online. Almost all banks and credit card companies have secure web sites that allow you to view your statements and activity safely online. Secure sites are those that begin with https// or display a padlock icon on your computer screen.
NEVER access a financial site through a link embedded in an e-mail message. E-mails with links asking you to verify or re-register your personal information are a sure sign of “phishing”, a scam to collect your name and other identifying information to steal your identity.
Instead, type the bank or creditor’s website address into your browser. Check your accounts every two weeks. Verify that the credits and debits shown on the statements are valid. Report any suspicious activity immediately to your bank or creditor.
2) Monitor your credit report. The main reason for stealing your identity is to open new credit accounts to purchase good and services using your name and stolen identity. Chances are that you won’t know you’re an ID theft victim until you’re denied credit or you receive bills for accounts you never opened.
If an ID thief has opened accounts in your name, they are most likely to appear on your credit report. There are three major credit reporting agencies; Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian.
New legislation allows you to obtain your credit report annually from all three of these agencies for free. This new program is being phased in gradually across the U.S.. Check www.annualcreditreport.com to see when your state becomes active in this program.
3) Use credit monitoring services. A variety of paid services are available that will monitor your credit reports for activity and alert you to any changes. As with any product or service, make sure you understand what you’re getting before you buy. You can enjoy a free 30-day trial of CreditCheck® monitoring service and get a free copy of your Experian credit report by visiting http://www.yourfreecreditreportnow.com. This monitoring service checks your credit report daily to notify you about fraudulent activity, new inquiries, new accounts, late payments, and more so you can spot possible signs of identity theft. After the free 30-day trial, you will be billed $9.95 monthly unless you cancel the service.
If you become a victim of ID theft, your opportunity for loans, jobs, or even housing could be affected. Taking immediate action after being victimized can minimize the damage.
Here are some additional helpful identity theft related sites:
www.consumer.gov/idtheft/ (US government ID theft website)
www.privacyrights.org/identity.htm (ID theft resources)
www.identitytheft.org/ (ID theft prevention and survival)
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About The Author |
Email is the quintessential business communication tool, so when it doesn’t work like it’s supposed to, business suffers. Anti spam software is designed to protect your inbox from unwanted messages, but unless your system is properly trained even the best software misses the mark and flags legitimate messages as spam. These messages are referred to as “false positives.”
While consumer and ISP anti spam products focus on blocking messages and even consider some false positives acceptable, businesses require anti spam solutions that treat their messages as very valuable. Failing to receive critical messages in a timely fashion can do irreparable damage to customer and partner relationships and cause important orders to be missed, so eliminating false positives while maintaining high anti spam accuracy is paramount to any enterprise anti spam solution.
What causes false positives?
Different anti spam solutions utilize different methods of detecting and blocking spam. Anti spam software typically uses content filtering or Bayesian Logic, an advanced content filtering method, to score each email, looking for certain tell-tale signs of spammer habits such as frequently used terms like “Viagra” or “click here.” Other anti spam solutions reference blacklists and whitelists to determine whether the sender has shown spammer tendencies in the past. A false positive can occur when a legitimate sender raises enough red flags, either by using too many “spam terms” or sending from an IP address that has been used by spammers in the past.
Minimizing False Positives
Although it takes a person only a moment to process a message and identify it as spam, it is difficult to automate that human process because no single message characteristic consistently identifies spam. In fact, there are hundreds of different message characteristics that may indicate an email is spam, and an effective anti spam solution must be capable of employing multiple spam detection techniques to effectively cover all bases.
A comprehensive anti spam approach involves examining both message content and sender history in tandem. By using a reputation system to evaluate senders based on their past behavior, a more accurate picture of their intentions and legitimacy can be discerned, and a solution’s false positive rate can be further lowered. Has the sender engaged in spamming, virus distribution or phishing attacks in the past? If not, the likelihood of their message getting past the email gateway just went up, and the chances of a false positive declined accordingly. If they have, an effective reputation system knows and flags the message.
Self-Optimization
In order to be most effective, anti spam solutions must learn based on a recipient’s preferences. While most of us prefer not to receive emails containing the term Viagra, some medical organizations might need to receive these emails in order to process patient data. In order to best learn your organizational preferences, anti spam solutions should put filtered emails into a quarantine that allows users to review and make decisions as to whether a particular message is spam. Making this quarantine available to the end-user lowers the administration costs and increases the accuracy of the anti spam system.
Each time a user makes a decision about whether a particular email is or is not spam, the system becomes more personalized and intelligent about filtering email for that individual in the future. Over time, users find that they rarely need to review their quarantines anymore because the system has learned how to identify messages that are important to that user.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater
In conclusion, it is imperative that false positives be kept to an absolute minimum for business users. Although consumers may have more patience with incorrectly blocked email, businesses cannot afford these types of problems. An effective, accurate anti spam solution aggregates multiple spam detection technologies, combining the benefits of each individual technique to stop spam while minimizing false positives. It also puts suspected spam into a quarantine that is available to end-users, and learns how to better identify spam in the future.
Dr. Paul Judge is a noted scholar and entrepreneur. He is Chief Technology Officer at CipherTrust, the industry’s largest provider of enterprise email security. The company’s flagship product, IronMail provides a best of breed enterprise anti spam solution designed to stop spam, phishing attacks and other email-based threats. Learn more by visiting http://www.ciphertrust.com/products/spam_and_fraud_protection/ today.
Tips for Helping Your RSS Feed Perform!
In some ways RSS is very similar to HTML, the language commonly used to create websites. Just as with HTML, webmasters using traditional search engine optimization tactics when creating an RSS feed will find that their RSS feed receives additional exposure and interest.
Simple steps to optimize an RSS feed for search engines:
1.) The title should contain important search terms.
To state the obvious, the title should be relevant and not misleading, while still emphasizing keywords. Ultimately, the title should entice the reader to read on, not mislead them.
2.) Display RSS feeds.
Most webmasters display their feeds as content on their website. When displaying a feed be sure to use PHP, ASP or HTML so that search engines will spider the contents of the feed displayed. If using a template to display feeds, use header tags to define the appearance of the Channel Title and Item Titles. Many search engines weight header tags with more importance. See Displaying RSS Feeds for additional information - http://www.small-business-software.net/display-rss.htm
3.) Internal & external Links.
Within a feed you should always use the full path of any links, keeping in mind that other sites may syndicate the contents of the RSS feed. Links that are not local to the site should launch a new browser. While this is not specific to search engines it will help keep visitors on your site.
4.) Link text should emphasize keywords.
It is no longer a deep, dark secret that the text used for incoming links will help a site contextually define the keywords that the site appears for in the search engines. Keeping that in mind, be sure to use keywords in any link text that points back to your website.
5.) My.Yahoo and My.MSN.
This is surprisingly simple to do but often overlooked by publishers and webmasters. The fastest way to have an RSS feed spidered by Yahoo or MSN is to include the feed on a personal my.yahoo or my.msn home page. Simply create an account on the respective search engines and customize the home page to include your RSS feed. This is done by adding content and listing the URL to the RSS feed. Typically, within 24-48 hours the feed’s contents will be spidered and indexed by Yahoo and MSN.
6.) Theme feeds.
Feeds should be themed. This will help with themed links back to a publisher’s website from anyone syndicating the feed’s content.
7. ) Link popularity.
Increase link popularity by submitting the RSS feed, blog or podcast to the appropriate directories. The following directories allow submissions of specific kinds of RSS feeds. Be sure to follow the guidelines of each site and choose categories wisely.
Submit Podcasts - http://www.podcasting-tools.com/submit-podcasts.htm
Submit RSS feeds - http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm
Submit Blogs - http://www.blog-connection.com/submit-blogs.htm
8.) RSS feed descriptions.
RSS feed descriptions are generally summaries or introductions to other content. Often, feed creators will provide additional information on an HTML site, enticing the reader to click through for the full information if it is a topic that is of interest to them. Provide enough teaser copy that the reader can easily discern if the contents are something that is important to them.
9.) Subscribe to feeds.
This might seem obvious, but a surprisingly large number of publishers do not subscribe to their own feed. This is a great way to visualize what your customers see, and experiment with formatting and integrating HTML into feeds.
10.) Image ads.
Add your corporate logo to your RSS feed. Create a brand and enforce that brand by including the image in the RSS feed. The image will enhance your corporate identity and dress up the look of your feed by adding your corporate logo.
11.) Alphabetical rank.
Many feed readers list feeds alphabetically in the reader. Feed channels that begin with A will naturally appear in the top of the feed list in most feed readers. If you wish to appear in the top of list of feeds that a reader has subscribed to, keep this tip in mind.
12.) Meaningful Links
Each item in your feed should contain a unique URL associated with it. This will direct users to associated information. Many find using target URLs with the “#” symbol in the link to identify specific content useful.
Most marketers have a love-hate relationship with search engines. Search engines have the abilitiy to make even the most confident webmaster feel powerless . Let’s face it - all of us have felt the wrath of the search engine powers-that-be at one time or another, and while it may be difficult to know what line was crossed or how we fell out of favor, following some basic guidelines will be helpful in optomizing feeds for search engines.
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About The Author |
You go to a nice restaurant, enjoy a great meal and pay with your Visa or MasterCard. Although you add a nice tip for your friendly waiter, it’s possible that he earns a much bigger commission on his way back to the Cashier, with a tiny scanning device that records all of your credit card information. Soon you could be the victim of identity theft!
Or you travel on business and your Company books you in to a comfortable hotel - the kind that provides you with a card instead of a key to open your room. Did you know that many of these card keys now record your personal information, and, unless you destroy the card when you leave the hotel, it is so easy for someone to steal those details with a simple scanner?
What is Identity Theft?
The short answer is that identity theft is a crime. Identity theft and identity fraud are terms used to refer to all types of crime in which someone wrongfully obtains and uses another person’s personal data in some way that involves fraud or deception, typically for economic gain. This guide is intended to explain why you need to take precautions to protect yourself from identity theft. Unlike your fingerprints, which are unique to you and cannot be given to someone else for their use, your personal data, especially your Social Security number, your bank account or credit card number, your telephone calling card number, and other valuable identifying data can be used, if they fall into the wrong hands, to personally profit at your expense.
In the United States and Canada, for example, many people have reported that unauthorized persons have taken funds out of their bank or financial accounts, or, in the worst cases, taken over their identities altogether, running up vast debts and committing crimes while using the victims’ names. In many cases, a victim’s losses may include not only out-of-pocket financial losses, but substantial additional financial costs associated with trying to restore his reputation in the community and correcting erroneous information for which the criminal is responsible.
And perhaps the worst part is that you are treated like a criminal - innocent until proven guilty does not seem to apply here, and in many cases you will be expected to prove that you did no wrong, rather than the other way around, and many victims have spent countless hours and assets in trying to avoid bankruptcy.
What Can I Do To Avoid Becoming A Victim Of Identity Theft?
Be careful to guard your pin number when using an ATM.
Use PayPal (for instance) with limited funds available for on line transactions.
Check your bank accounts and credit report regularly.
SEO Solutions and one way link publicity services provided by LinkAcquire
David C Skul - CEO LinkAcquire.com and Relativity, Inc. can provide global market exposure and solutions.
RSS is THE popular catchphrase, creating waves in today’s Internet world. But exactly what is RSS feed?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary, and is a very cost effective method to bring your information to your clients and potential clients.
When you as a marketer/businessman/company, decide to promote your business through the marketing strategies of the Internet, it’s time to take full advantage of this interactive medium. It pays to know what is RSS feed.
RSS has numerous advantages over the other existing methods, to turn it into the most sought-after, powerful, dominant tool, which will take over the Internet world soon.
Beyond just knowing what is RSS feed, this is how RSS can help you:
* Your website is the gold mine of information on how the public respond to what you say. RSS provides an unbelievable platform to discuss the views of the public without wasting time. Instead, you can spend your time on crafting quality contents. RSS has many special features such as dialog facilitators, RSS radars, and automatic responders to enhance the significance of conversational marketing.
* Your search engine ranking reflects how good your website is! Knowing what is RSS feed and harnessing its power properly will increase the search engine ranking remarkably well, and this helps develop your business.
* What do the visitors get on visiting your website? Interview customers for their feedback, do a research and make changes to your website accordingly. The last part can be done easily by knowing what is RSS feed and using them effectively.
* The look of your website is very important. RSS has made it very easy to understand, see and feel your message for the visitors by mixing video and audio channels to your contents. Also, keep in mind that not only is it enough to have a good website but an appropriate one to your business also, to catch your visitor’s eye.
* Make your website work well in all the browsers. Your website is open to a variety of visitors who can prefer browsers of their choices. RSS is a convenient way since it works on all platforms. Most of the browsers may not face hurdles accessing RSS.
* You can collect a lot of information such as the number of subscribers, their interests, their reading frequency, the topics they are more interested in etc using RSS feeds. These are definitely going to be vital for improving your standards of business.
And do not think it’s a super-techie thing that you cannot use! Once you understand fully what is RSS feed, you are open to the amazing world of RSS and one day, sure to find yourself hooked to it!
So, what are you waiting for? Get going to know what is RSS feed, be familiar with it, and unleash the power of this incredible, powerful tool!
Thomas Choo specializes in Internet Home Based Business. Visit http://www.multiple-revenue.com to learn what RSS can do for you, and for free download of the amazing ebook on RSS and a really useful RSS software (both sold elsewhere for $64).
While we all agree that there`s way too much spamming/junk-mailing going on in our email boxes, there are a couple of things we can do to reduce the amount of mails we actually have to sift through, without having to resort to paying for expensive software that can be a real pain to set up properly.
Firstly, and this is a great, little known tip. You can get yourself a free email account, (the bigger the better) which is a great thing to have if you use a lot of FFA`s, Classified sites, Search Engine Submittals etc. When you create the junkmail account, be sure to save the information you`ve used to create it with into a Wordpad/Notepad file.
When the account is full, flit through it quickly, just to make sure there`s nothing of real importance there. If there is, copy and paste it to your favourite text document. Then just go ahead and delete the whole junkmail account. You`ve saved the info you used to create it with in the first place, so it`ll only take a couple of minutes to re-create it.
Next, whenever you join a program or a site, have your email client open at the same time, so you get the welcome mails immediately. Confirm the welcome immediately, then put the mail into a special folder, created for all emails from that particular address.
That way, different emails go to different folders, without getting too mixed up. If and when you decide to leave that program, delete all the mail you`ve saved from them, but please make sure that you DO actually opt-out before doing this.
Another thing to remember is if you`re getting mails from someplace and you`re pretty darned sure you have absolutely no reason to be getting them, DON`T click on the remove me link! What you`re really doing, is letting the spammers know that they`ve mailed to a real, used address, and they`ll mail more and more, and never stop. Some of the more unscrupulous ones will even sell your address to be used as part of a mailing list, which in turn with result in even MORE spam.
A lot of people seem to have forgotten where the delete button is, and scream the dreaded word “SPAM!!” as soon as an unfamiliar looking email drops into their inbox. This can be very damaging to legitimate business owners, so please, don`t ever say spam, unless it well and truly is.
If you really don`t have time or inclination to follow these tips, there IS software out there that can filter your mails automatically for you. The biggest drawback with these is that they can actually stop you receiving mail that you WANT to get if you don`t set it up properly.
Setting up the software filters can also be very confusing and time consuming, so if that`s the way you choose to go, make sure you set aside some time for it, and don`t get distracted by anything else until it`s done.
May you be prosperous in everything you do.
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Death by spam is now possible with a new device by Microsoft. The device when implanted in the user’s skull allows downloading of email directly into the brain.
Niles Bookbinder, 37, an assistant working for Jon Hanson, author of Good Debt, Bad Debt was accidentally spammed to death Tuesday morning using a beta version of a new email device called, “MS Mind.” A Microsoft spokesperson said, “We don’t have all of the bugs worked out yet, but this is the first death we know of.” Mr. Bookbinder had unwittingly “unchecked” the spam filter in the MS Mind control panel. Without the spam filter, apparently Niles unleashed the entire world of spam into his “medulla interface” and was literally spammed to death. It’s likely the last words Mr. Bookbinder heard were, “You’ve got mail!”
Wireless Medulla Interface providers are popping up everywhere. Dr. Jack Kevorkian sees the new Wireless “G” Medulla cards as a real advance for him. With these systems, euthanasia supporters predict quick, painless death by simply bypassing the filters and downloading thousands of spam emails quickly. Kevorkian said, “I have been looking forward to killing patients by email.” Kevorkian expects his prices to be competitive with AOL.
While it is not a victimless crime, it would be a crime without a knowable perpetrator. You would have no way of knowing whether your “loved one” was finished off by the breast enlargement, Viagra softabs starting at $2.99, or $ave $$$ now refinance emails.
A PETA spokesperson, Ima Chihuahua, said she found the idea disturbing because it could lead to so-called Spam Collars that would be used to kill pets as they aged, or “convenience” killings, such as when a young couple could not find a kennel on their way to Vegas or they simply change their minds about having a pet.
PETA may be right. It has long been rumored that KFC has been testing the effectiveness of spamming chickens to death versus simply whacking off their heads. In earlier tests, chickens were forced to watch Gili and Ishtar until they simply cut off their own heads, but this experiment was discontinued because of the cruelty to experimenters.
Spamicide, accidental or not, will undoubtedly set off a bitter debate in America as Anti-Spammers and Right-to-Spam groups rally to raise money and jockey for political clout.
George W. Bush seemed bewildered at this morning’s briefing. He looked to his press secretary and said, “Are we Right-to-Spam or Anti-Spammers?” Elsewhere, Jesse Jackson, finding it difficult to be Right-to-Spam said, “It should be the choice of the spammee. Spamicide should be legal, available, and rare.”
NEXT WEEK: Partial Spam Deletion. Should this barbaric practice be outlawed? Are thousands of viable spams being killed in spam filters, just before being downloaded? The debate continues…
Jon Hanson
www.gooddebt.com
jon[at]gooddebt.com
Jon Hanson, is the author of “Good Debt, Bad Debt: Knowing the Difference Can Save Your Financial Life”
His web site is http://www.gooddebt.com jon [at] gooddebt.com
For a bit of audio comic relief go to: http://gooddebt.com/debtdowns.htm
Available for interviews radio, print, TV, contact Jon through the website http://www.gooddebt.com
Review of Good Debt, Bad Debt:
USA Today February 7, 2005 http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/reviews/2005-02-06-debt-usat_x.htm
Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE), or spam has reached epidemic proportions, and continues to grow. According to American Online, of the estimated 30 million email messages each day, about 30% on average was unsolicited commercial email. As a result of its very low marginal costs, spam has become extremely prolific. Regardless of how many emails are sent out, the spammers’ costs are low, and constant. With numbers like these, there is a tremendous burden shifted to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) to process and store that amount of data. Huge volumes of this junk may undoubtedly contribute to many of the access, speed, and reliability problems suffered by many ISPs. Further, many large ISPs have experienced major system outages as the result of massive junk email campaigns. Spam is an issue about consent, not content. Regardless of whether the UCE message is an advertisement, porn, or a winning lottery notice, the content is irrelevant. If the message was sent unsolicited, and in bulk then the message is spam.
This junk e-mail is more than just annoying; it costs Internet users, and Internet-based businesses millions, even billions, per year. When a spammer sends an email message to a million people, it is carried by numerous electronic systems on route to its destination. The systems in between are bearing the burden of carrying advertisements, and other unsolicited junk for the spammer. The number of spams sent out each day is truly overwhelming, and each one must be handled efficiently, and expeditiously by many systems. There is no justification for forcing third parties to bear the load of unsolicited advertising. Ultimately, these costs are passed on to YOU, the consumer.
Spam originates in one of two ways, it is sent directly by the spammer from and under their control, or via illegal third party exploitation such as open proxies or open relays. Spammers get your address in a variety of ways. If you sign up for, and provide your email address, these seemingly friendly sites can turn around and sell your email to advertisers. Additionally, if you have your email address on a Web page, it is easy for unscrupulous advertisers to “harvest” it, and add you to their lists.
There are ways to reduce the number of spam messages, however it is presently impossible to stop them all. Spam filters, are software applications that redirect emails based on the presence of certain common phrases, or words. These automated measures are prone to being defeated by clever spammers. Additionally, there is a risk of important emails being deleted as spam. In 2003, Congress passed a sweeping law, CAN-SPAM act of 2003, which basically prohibits the use of deceptive subject lines and false headers in all emails. Additionally, the FTC is authorized (but not required) to establish a do-not-email registry. The CAN-SPAM Act took effect on January 1, 2004.
Spam is based on theft of service; it wastes time, money, and other resources. Spam can and will overwhelm your electronic mail box if it isn’t fought. Over time, unless the growth of spam isn’t stopped, it will destroy the usefulness and effectiveness of email as a communication tool.
Jay B Stockman is a contributing editor for Spam Blocker Software Solutions Visit http://spam-blockeronline.com/ for more information.
