Spam emails started growing in the early 1990’s and have been ever since. Spam robots collect addresses from websites, forums, chartrooms, newsgroups, etc. Lists are then made and often sold to spammers, who will use them to send a great amount of unwanted emails. Some people can receive hundreds or even thousands of spam emails per day. There are a few solutions you can put in place to avoid this.

1. Use spam filters

Hotmail, Gmail, Outlook and most other email clients have spam filtering capabilities. It’s only up to you to set them up so spam doesn’t reach your inbox. A great idea can also be to combine them. For example, if you’re using Gmail and Outlook, be sure both that spam filters are activated. This way, if both of them intercept 95% of it, only a few will be left for you do delete.

2. Block external content

A much used spamming tactic is to send emails to hundreds of addresses, without at first knowing if they really exist. At least one image will be included in the email. When you open it, your email client will have to fetch the image on the server, letting it know that you exist. Your address will then be added to spam lists.

3. Never answer spam emails

Never! Even if it’s to tell them that you’re not interested. The previous tactic (massive amount of messages sent to unknown addresses) can also work if you tell the « enemy » yourself that you exist.

4. Limit places where you post your address

All sorts of websites ask for our emails. Some will use it well, but others might sell it to spam services. What I personally do is use a secondary email that I use for websites that I’m not expecting to revisit soon or that aren’t too important to me.

5. Watch out for check boxes!

When you accept to give your email, make sure that there isn’t a check box that authorizes the website to sell or use your address. Even if you don’t check it yourself, it might already be enabled.

6. If you have a website, don’t publish your personal email

You should only use an alternate one. Robots continuously scan the Internet, searching for addresses they can send spam to. You would probably prefer that it all gets sent to a secondary address rather than to your main one. You can also try to avoid using generic emails such as support@…, sales@…, etc. Robots will easily find these out.

7. Watch out for chain letters or massive communication

When you send a chain letter to your friends or family, your address, as well as theirs, stays in the message. If a spammer eventually gets the email, he will get all of them.

Yohan T. writes for http://www.TheSecurityFile.com. Technology evolves very fast, and so do threats. The objective of The Security File is to help users manage security issues surrounding technology. Articles range from Internet protection to car system security, going through Wi-Fi encryption, web surfing safety, etc. Visit us now!