How To Reduce Spam – Simple Common Sense Techniques

By now, you’ve probably read a lot of articles about how governments and tech masters are trying to combat, reduce, and/or eliminate spam, also known as email spam. I don’t even have to start this article with the usual ‘what is spam’ intro, because I’m sure you already know and hate it. This article will not address the questionable implementation and use of commercially available tools and technologies. Instead, I will mention very basic common sense techniques that can efficiently reduce the amount of spam. This article is particularly useful for all those who intend to start an e-commerce business, or just put up a website, for fun or for profit.

Fact #1:

Spam is here to stay. Regardless of what you hear from government officials, from Bill Gates, from software vendors, from tech PhDs, the stark fact is that just as you can’t stop the Internet, you can’t stop spam in cyberspace that exists today. Period: end of story.

Fact #2:

The volume and offensive nature of the questionable practice of email spam is increasing at an exponential rate, as I read in reports published by stat gurus like Gartner. What do we do about it? The short answer is that there is no 100% foolproof solution. However, implementing the tips and techniques that I will share with you in this article can definitely help reduce it.

Tip #1:

Never post your email address on your website.

The primary way spammers obtain your email address is through the use of spambots, or spiders (technical term for automated programs that run on the Internet), which scour the web for the ubiquitous @ sign, the telltale indicator of a electronic address. -Email. These spiders search your web page and collect anything that appears to be an email address. The spammer will then add the obtained addresses to a large list and use it to promote some obscene and/or bogus product or service. Finally, the spammer will sell the list to other spammers and/or resellers, and your email address will go on the round in perpetuity.

The only way to prevent your address from being harvested in this way is to not post it there in the first place.

Of course, you probably want potential customers and other visitors to be able to contact you. At first glance, tip #1 may seem counterproductive, but there is an alternative: keep reading!

Tip #2:

Use mail forms instead of listing and/or linking to the actual, explicit email address.

The details of configuring email forms (also known as web forms, mail forms, cgi forms) are not within the scope of this article, just because each web host uses various pieces of software, written in various languages. programming to achieve it. . Basically the way it works is your visitor lands on a page, fills some boxes with text, hits the “Submit” button, then the mail form processor sends you an email. Your email address can still be captured by persistent spammers, since it is usually hidden on the page, but there are several hidden techniques that I will discuss in detail in a different article. Also, most web hosting companies implement automatic spambot deterrent techniques that you can take advantage of simply by using their hosting services.

Tip #3:

Never follow the “unsubscribe instructions” contained in a spam email.

Spammers often use fake “unsubscribe instructions” to verify that your email address is working. If you follow these bogus instructions, your email address will most likely be added to more spam lists. Basically, the spammer now knows that the address that probably came from a scrape or an unverified list or a random generator is actually a valid address, there is a person who got it and responded. Your address will now be marked “premium” on the black market and further distributed, sold and used.

You can make only one exception to this rule, in the event that you know for sure that you subscribed to someone’s newsletter voluntarily and that person is a reputable company that you trust 100%.

Tip #4:

Do not forward chain letters, virus warnings, etc.

Most of the chain letters and virus warnings you receive via email are hoaxes or are initiated by spam houses intent on getting every email address they know of. Chain letters spread like wildfire and always tend to end up back in the spam house, with the email address of everyone it was sent to. Before taking any action with respect to an unsolicited virus warning, check the validity of the warning at http://www.sarc.com/ and/or http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/ and/or [http://www.mcafee.com/us/security/vil.htm]. I’ve never received a virus warning email that didn’t turn out to be a hoax; and many of these hoaxes advise you to delete key system files that will end up damaging your computer (and the computers of all your friends to whom you sent the bogus warning).

Tip #5.

Use POP email accounts and email forwarding creatively.

Another popular way to collect email addresses is through your own correspondence. Every time you buy something online or send an email to a business or organization, your email address is available to add to a mailing list. Don’t rely too much on the privacy statements of websites you don’t have experience with. Spammers make their living through theft and deception; certainly, they are not beyond providing false information in their privacy statements.

Usually when you buy web hosting, all your accounts come with some free email forwarding and some free additional POP email accounts. You can use these features to your advantage in your fight against spam:

First, create a new POP user just for the purpose of collecting spam. Call it whatever you want, for example, [email protected]; you will never use it for anything other than collecting spam.

Now take a look at the spam you are receiving and note the address it is being sent to. In many cases, spammers take your domain name and simply create addresses to attach to it ([email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] are among the most popular). When you see spam going to an email address that you don’t need for regular business or personal use, create an email forwarder that redirects email sent to that address to the spam capture POP account you created in the last step.

Spammers often harvest domain name WHOIS addresses, taking your administrative, billing, and technical contact email addresses to add to their lists. Use a one-time email forward for your contact information, and when spam starts arriving at that address, change your domain name record to reflect a new forwarded address and redirect the old address to the spammer’s POP.

Every time you order a product or service online, create a unique email forwarding for the company you’re ordering from. For example, if you order a CD from amazon.com, use [email protected] when you sign up with them (don’t forget to replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name; and don’t forget to create an email forwarder to deliver the mail to a valid POP account). This approach provides two benefits: 1) it allows you to redirect that address to your spammer if you start receiving spam; and 2) it will let you know who is selling your personal information to spammers; You can then decide if those companies are serving your trust and future business.

[NOTE: Eventually, your spam-catcher POP account will fill up and exceed its quota, as allocated by your hosting provider. When this happens, e-mail that’s sent to that POP account will begin “bouncing back” with an error message to the sender. Don’t worry about that – it won’t hurt anything. If the spammers actually provide a valid return address (which almost none do), the bounce will serve as notice that you’re not accepting their mail.]

Tip #6.

Use spam filters.

Most reputable hosting companies use spam filtering software and give you access to many management features. Do your homework and check out the features that come with your account.

Spam filters check incoming mail against various “spam blacklists” and automatically remove email sent from any source on any of those lists. Keep in mind that blacklists and spam filters in general aren’t perfect – there isn’t a filtering product available on the market that won’t 1) occasionally allow spam to escape and be delivered, and worse still, 2) occasionally reject valid email as spam. Please note that any mail deleted as a result of server-side spam filtering is not recoverable. There are other spam filtering options available to install locally; this gives you a choice of what to filter and what not to filter, and gives you the opportunity to recover valid email that was mistakenly removed by the filter.