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Too Much Spam? What You Can (And Can't) Do...
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10-Dec-2008
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If you have an E-mail account this is over...three days old, you've probably got spam. Lots of spam. Too much spam. You probably have anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-spam protection. Kind of like shooting a water pistol at an oncoming train (in theory, water can defeat anything; in practice...)? The good news is, there are things you can do. The bad news is, it requires a little extra work and you're probably not going to want to do them...
For starters, the reason you have spam is simply because you are on the Internet. If you have a public E-mail address (which almost all personal ones are, and at least 90% of business ones are), people have access to it. That is the definition of public. And there are these...'people' (and I do use the term sparingly)...who get paid large sums of money to find it. They can do this by being the recipient of these lovely forwards everyone sees about...every ten seconds (the next time you see a cute kitten incessantly dangling a ball of string and want to send it to everyone you know including your mother's friend's hair stylist's cousin, who happens to have a cat, look at ALL those names on the list and think of each one as a dollar in the spammer's pocket - STOP ADDING TO THE PROBLEM!), by searching through Web sites, by viruses that target E-mail account address books, or by openly buying business Web site's customer lists (and, to some extent, that's legal). So, again, if you have a public address, it's going to get out there - I guarantee it.
As for what you can do, again, you have already tried the anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam approach, and yet, you are still here. Still getting spam. Still frustrated. As is true with life, so is it true with the Internet; abstinance is the only guaranteed prevention. That does not mean no E-mailing at all, it simply means putting in a little extra work and doing it intelligently.
To start with, you need a minimum of two E-mail addresses for each public persona you have. This means if you personally use the Internet, two E-mail addresses. If you professionally use the Internet, two more E-mail addresses. Companies don't like to do this, but, if they're smart it doesn't cost them anything extra and to not do so is just irresponsible, considering all the harm that can come from E-mail. This means that each of us is probably going to need a minimum of four, yes, four, E-mail addresses.
For each Internet persona, you need a public address, that you use for all 'foreign' correspondence (vendors, subscriptions, unknown addressees, et cetera), and a private address, that you use for all 'internal' correspondence (family, friends, co-workers, et cetera). This does involve a little extra work, but it is the best and most effective means of eliminating spam on your private E-mail account. As for the public one, let's face it, folks, there's no hope.
The good news is, it isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. By utilizing public and private accounts, you can define how you access each. Your private one should, obviously, be your 'always on' account that you check with the most regularity. As for the public one, since it's only used when you invoke it publically, checking it once daily - and most likely to perform a 'delete all' action - is perfectly fine. If you make an Internet purchase, check then to verify your receipt. If you are expecting a quote from a vendor, check then to verify the information. Otherwise there is no need whatsoever to go to your public account (again, once daily to tidy up a bit is responsible and will eat a grand total of 3 minutes of your day).
As for your personal account, it is your guarded treasure. You may have to repeat this process a few times, as there is most likely a friend or two that will send you a forward or something that you will want to pass on. And you think to yourself, "I can just forward it to my public account and send from there." - WRONG! Your private account will still be in the history. This is where the copy and paste functionality comes into play. Simply open both accounts simultaneously (if you already have your second monitor display this will be no problem whatsoever), and copy the message contents of the other E-mail into a new message from the public account (with your private address ommitted from the recipients list). And, of course, never respond to a forward from you private address, as, if anything you had to comment was worthwhile, it will likely be in the next round of forwards (with your private address). |
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