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2. What Can I Do About
Spam?
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There are things you
can do to combat spam. |
You can forward spam to your ISP's abuse department, which works with
other ISPs to locate and shut down spammers. You may also forward spam
to the Federal Trade Commission at uce@ftc.gov.
The next page of this article tells how to forward spam.
The FTC wants to hear from people who have opted out of mailings and
still get them. They also want to hear about scams.
Spammers are very clever and a few words of caution are in order when
dealing with them. If they can get you to validate your e-mail address
then it becomes infinitely more valuable to them. In addition to sending
you more spam they can sell your name to other spammers.
- Do not attempt to "opt out" of a spam mailing and do not
write the spammer. You will probably reach an "auto responder"
that dutifully records your e-mail address.
- Do not forward spam to an ISP you don't recognize. If in doubt, visit
the domain to see if it is really a mail service or an ISP. Legitimate
e-mail services will appreciate hearing from you. If the domain is something
like "Best Values" or "Special Offers" then do not
send them anything!
- Never reply to an e-mail address that uses an IP address instead of
a domain name. If you "mouse over" the link to the address
and see an address with a string of numbers such as StopTheMail@123.45.67.123
this is an IP address.
- Never click on an "opt out" link without "mousing over"
it to see where it will take you. If it is an IP address you shouldn't
go there. If it is an unknown domain name don't go there unless you
have a firewall on your computer. Spammers can collect all kinds of
useful information when you visit their Website.
It cannot be repeated too many times: Never "opt out" of a
spam mailing. You only tell the sender that your address is valid. They
may indeed pull your address from the mailing list, only to add it to
a few dozen more.
If you have subscribed to the mailing list of a company with which you
have a relationship it is safe to submit an opt-out request. Note that
some spammers state in their e-mail that you have "opted in"
to their mailings when, in fact, you have not. Sending an opt-out request
to them could be a problem for you.
- One spammer assured us that we had "opted in" to receive
their mailings, the first of which we had just received. The e-mail
address they used had been dormant for years. This spammer was lying.
While you can't stop the transmission of spam to your mail server you
can prevent it from reaching you.
- If you are using a commercial Web mail system such as Yahoo or MSN
there are spam filtering options you can use. Check with the company's
FAQs or other help.
- If you have your own domain you can usually set up filtering rules
for e-mail. We have blocked anything with key words such as "viagra"
and "cable de-scrambler" and that has reduced the number of
spams considerably.
- You can use a third-party service for filtering e-mail. We offer the
Cogni-Mail
service in our Home & Office section and there are others available
as well.
- Spam filtering software is available from a number of sources but
please don't buy it from an offer you received via spam; you will only
encourage the spammer! Try the product before you pay for it. Some products
work better than others and not everyone's needs are the same. Many
of them have a trial license, i.e., 30 days.
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