Nothing makes me angrier than opening my email in-box to find over 150 messages, wading through them all, and discovering that 135 of the messages rate as nothing more than junk.
The problem with junk email or “spam” (the popular slang for unsolicited commercial email) only seems to get worse with each passing day.
Luckily, we can fight back in ways that will actually cut down significantly on the amount of spam we receive on a daily basis.
Does this sound familiar?
You open your e-mail program and before reading the important messages you must sort through and delete thirty or forty junk mail messages. If you spend only five minutes a day sorting through the spam, that translates into 30.4 hours a year.
That equals almost an entire workweek spent deleting unwanted e-mail!
Spam ties up hard drive space on your computer and clogs the system resources of your Internet service provider’s (ISP) mail server that stores your e-mail until downloaded to your computer. With millions of messages circulating every minute, spam decreases Internet transmission speeds as a whole.
Finally, spam’s biggest threat lies in its status as the preferred vehicle of online scam artists, thieves and cheats.
Unsolicited e-mail provides a cheap, fast, and anonymous means for ripping you off. The capability of instantly sending millions of slick, postage-free messages with the click of a mouse opened a whole new avenue for dishonest people.
Try these tips and see if they can’t cut the spam you receive down by at least half.
Don’t Respond
Much of the spam you receive contains an “unsubscribe” link saying something like “To unsubscribe, click here.” Do NOT click that link. Clicking it lets spammers know they’ve got a live email address!
Use Mailwahser
Get a program like “Mailwasher” from Mailwasher.net that allows you to view the email you receive before you download it. The program makes it simple to delete dozens of emails, including viruses, before they reach your computer.
Use Your Filters
Your email program most likely contains filters you can use to weed out emails containing the usual spam words like “opportunity, $$$, sex, viagra” and a host of others. You can set the filters to delete messages containing these words before ever downloading them to your computer.
Use An “Assassin”
Spam “killer” services offer users high-powered filtering, often requiring a sender to prove their identity before an email gets sent to the recipient. One such service, Spam Arrest, forces email senders to go to a website and type in a random word before their email gets delivered. This service has gained a lot of popularity lately and seems reasonably effective.
Use a Temporary Email
Maintain a public and private email address and never give your private email to anyone other than family and friends. Go sign up for a free email account with Hotmail.com or mail.yahoo.com to use whenever you subscribe to a newsletter or request a free report. That way, if the spam ever gets too bad, you can simply abandon the free account and open another. Your private email address should remain safe because nobody will know it except the people you trust.
Never Post Your Email
Never post your private email address in forums, guest books, news groups or on a website. Spammers use little robots that comb the Internet looking for email addresses they can collect and sell to others. Always use a free account or set it up so you can shut off the exposed email address once the spam gets too bad.
Abandon Ship
Shut down your current account and just start over! This may seem a drastic move, but it may represent the best course of action if your sanity or your email box can’t handle another offer for sexual enhancements, a great business opportunity, or a free cruise. Notify everyone you want to know your new email address and get on with life.
Call the “Spam” Cops
Log on to SpamCop.net and you can report spammers for their dastardly deeds and, hopefully, put a stop to their activities. Spamcop.net will try to track down the offending party and encourage them to stop their activities by applying some pressure.
Now, let’s talk about something you can do immediately to cut down on the spam you must deal with daily…