Spam Prevention Tips

Articles > Computing

By Kevin Hammond, Database Development Services, Inc
Updated on Jan 8, 2008

Your best weapon against spam is to exercise caution in providing your email address at web sites, chat rooms, newsgroups, message boards, mailing lists and other locations on the Internet that are accessible to people you don’t know. Your personal information is valuable – guard it carefully! MEANING PROTECT YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS

STEP 1 - UNDERSTAND SPAM AND HOW SPAMMERS GET YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
Spammers most commonly get your email address from public Internet sites where you unsuspectingly have provided your address. Your address is retrieved by computer programs written to “harvest” your information, then added to a database, merged with other databases, and sold by address brokers. Given the speed and low cost of electronic communications, this process multiplies the amount of spam you receive with lightening speed.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2002 led an investigation to determine how consumers’ email addresses wind up in the databases of junk emailers.

CAN-SPAM Act of 2003
Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003
Help is on the way, at least we hope. Recently a law was passed stating rules spammers must follow. The major points are stated below. To get more detailed information, go to http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/canspam.html

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 states commercial e-mail senders must:

STEP 2 - AVOID SPAM, LIMITING THE AMOUNT OF JUNK E-MAIL
OPEN A PUBLIC E-MAIL ACCOUNT
ALWAYS use two or more email addresses, one for personal messages and one for posting in public. Set up disposable addresses, use two or more email accounts.  Register for one or more free e-mail accounts (HotMail, Google, and Yahoo). Use a disposable email address service that creates separate email addresses that forwards to your permanent account.  If one of the disposable addresses begins to receive spam, you can shut it off without affecting your permanent address. If you work for a business or organization that wants to receive email from the public, consider creating separate accounts or disposable email addresses for that purpose, rather than having an employee's address posted in public.

DON'T RESPOND TO SPAM
Never respond to junk e-mail. Although spammers say they will remove you from their mailing list if you send them an "opt out" request, many use your response as an indicator that your account is active and will send you additional unsolicited commercial e-mail or sell your address to other marketers. Do not open, and never respond, to junk email.
NOTE: The Can SPAM Act of 2003 is designed to increase ones' capability to respond back to the spammer resulting in the removal of your email address from their marketing list(s). Use your judgment when desiring to respond to SPAM.

JUST SAY NO - READ FORMS CLOSELY BEFORE SUBMITTING
Whenever you sign up for an account online always look for checkboxes that automatically sign you up for solicitation. Take your time when reviewing the form before submitting to create an account. Opt-out if a web site is offering to provide you with future information about its products or services when you are registering or making a purchase. Make sure you opt-out of being placed on mailing lists if you do not want to receive commercial e-mail messages from the site or its partners. If the site does not provide the opportunity to opt-out of a mailing list, you may not want to register on that site or use your disposable email address.

Review the privacy policy of any web site requesting your e-mail address, or any other personal information, to ensure that your information won't be provided to third parties. A web site's privacy policy should specifically state that it will not provide your e-mail address to another party without your express permission. If the web site doesn't have a privacy policy, don't provide it with your personal information or use one of your alternate or disposable email accounts.

DON'T OPEN OR PREVIEW SPAM
Opening an HTML spam email actually validates to the spammer that you viewed their email. They use hidden images that load via a web connection and relays the spammer that YOU looked at that email, thus making your email more valuable.

To prevent this one cannot use the preview pane in Outlook and Outlook Express and other major email clients. Or upgrade to Outlook 2003, which now has a feature that can allow the user to block downloading of web based referenced images. Read more below.
http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HP010859521033

USE A UNIQUE USER NAME
Use a unique email address. Use for example first initial of your first name and last name as a username instead of just your firstname, ie. john@xxxx.com. Your choice of email address may affect the amount of spam you receive because some spammers use "dictionary attacks" to email many possible name combinations at large ISPs' or email services, hoping to find a valid address. For example the email address webmaster@xxxx.com will result in lots of spam, inherently, since it is easy to guess that someone is going to get emails to this address.

NEVER BUY ANYTHING ADVERTISED IN SPAM
The reason people send unsolicited commercial e-mail is because they make money when people buy the products or services the junk mail is promoting. If no one buys the products advertised in SPAM, the incentive to send junk e-mail is reduced. Exercise extreme caution before you buy anything and never provide your credit card number to businesses that advertised through spam.

YOUR COMPANY OR PERSONAL WEB SITE - BEWARE
Do not post your email address on a web site. Use contact forms that automatically email you the information, then you can make a judgment call on whether to respond back granting the person access to your email address. Posting your email address as simple text on a web site allows bots to scan your site and successfully grab your email address for spammer databases which are then sold to online marketers.

You can still post your email address on your web site, but using one of the techniques below will help prevent your email address from easily and automatically being grabbed by robots. To be completely safe, just don't post it to a website, period, but if you desire to do so here are a few ways to prevent spammers from harvesting your email off a web page.

1. Make your email address a .gif.
2. Make the "@" symbol a Character like @
3. Use Javascript to create the email address using document.write

STEP 3 - TAKING ACTION - LEAVE ME ALONE PLEASE
In the meantime, what can you do with the spam in your in-box?

1. Opt-Out of Legitimate Advertisers
First opt-out of any legitimate email advertisements you receive. For example, if you wish to no longer receive amazon.com emails, then log onto your account and change your marketing preferences. Remember, if the email does not come from a legitimate company, then I would not opt-out. Opting-out will most likely just verify your email as being valid and then produce more undesired solicitation.

For example, if the email states, "Remove me by following the link below," first see if that company looks to be legitimate. Go to that domain's home page first to see if you can find a contact address and phone number of the domain. More times often than not you will not find contact information. I believe if you cannot gather the company address, phone, and email address, then you should be very hesitant in verifying your email address for removal. Opt-Out with caution!!!

2. FILTER YOUR E-MAIL
There are several ways individuals can attempt to filter unsolicited commercial messages from their e-mail.

a) Contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Check with your ISP to see if it can assist with filtering commercial e-mail. America OnLine (AOL) users can go to a special section (keyword: Mail Controls) to learn more about SPAM, request filtering services, and complain about unsolicited commercial e-mail. Other ISPs' also offer similar services; check with your individual service provider. If your ISP doesn't offer a filtering service, ask them to provide the service. If SPAM is still slipping through, install your own filter. There are numerous filters available to the public both for sale and for free.

b) Adjust your e-mail settings
Some e-mail programs have built-in filtering options that can be adjusted by the user. Consult your software instruction booklet or contact the manufacturer to determine if you can filter e-mail with your current program package.

OUTLOOK 2003
Outlook 2003 fights Spam
http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/AnchorDesk/4520-7297_16-5093279.html?tag=adts

c) Filtering Software
If SPAM is still slipping through, install your own filtering software. There are numerous filters available to the public both for sale and for free. I recommend clients to purchase Norton AntiSpam, rated #1 Spam software by PC Magazine in 2004. There are several free SPAM filtering software packages available to the public (Brightmail, MailCircuit, Gfi). USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

3. Report SPAM to the Federal Trade Commission
If you receive deceptive e-mail, report it to the FTC. If you receive an unwanted legitimate commercial e-mail, respond to the sender to state that you do not want to receive further e-mail from that sender. If you then receive subsequent commercial messages from that sender more than 10 days after your request would have been received, you may report that to the FTC. Make sure that you include the full email header and the email message you received. The information in the header makes it possible to follow up on your complaint. Send your objectionable spam to the Federal Trade Commission at uce@ftc.gov. The FTC uses the emails in this database to pursue law enforcement actions against people who send deceptive spam.   

To file a complaint or to get free information on consumer issues, visit www.ftc.gov or call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357) voice; or 1-866-653-4261 TTY.

4. Contact your local congressman
Spam is a national problem and many solutions are being drafted at the moment. Email problems such as SPAM need solutions as the current email systems and legislation are not enough and are difficult to enforce as networks span the globe. Contact your local congress person and voice your concern. Email is a time saving resource that is now becoming inefficient and very costly to the end users that are abused by SPAMmers, worms, and viruses.

UPDATE - FTC First Spam Case
In April of 2004 the FTC prosecuted its first case involving spammers. Four defendants in the Detroit area were involved in a fraudulent herbal weight loss product being sold for $59.95. According to the FTC more than 10,000 complaints were sent against the accused. So keep up the reporting the spam to the FTC.