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In the last few years the amount of spam mail has risen extraordinarily. Today the majority of mail messages that are tried to be delivered is spam. Nevertheless the amount of spam that is seen by end users is lower than some time ago because spam filters have evolved and improved their quality. Of course spam filters have disadvantages also. There is always a small risk that you lose messages that are not spam (false positives) and spam filters can be a considerable resource drag.

If there would be a way to avoid handling all these spam messages (or at least most of them) on the mail server, your mail server would require less CPU power, less disk space for log files, less traffic and the chances for false positives would be much lower if you could adjust your spam filter to be less aggressive or even completely avoid the need to use it. There are a number of things you can do to achieve this. These tips only work for a new email address or a new domain. If you already receive lots of spam it is nearly impossible to get out of all the spam databases.

Hide your email address. Spammers only will be able to send you spam if they know your email address. If you don’t need to make your email address public, just give it to your friends and business partners but don’t put it on a web site.

Make it hard to guess your email address. Address brokers and spammers (or their software) often try to guess email addresses to be able to sell them or send spam to them. Make your address hard to guess. If you own the domain example.com don’t use simple addresses like bob@example.com. Use a combination of your first name and your surname or add a number. You might also consider to use a subdomain for mail. Your new address might be something like bobr@mail.example.com.

Use a contact form on your web site. To avoid publishing your email address on your web site you can use a contact form. That way your visitors are still able to send you inquiries via your web site but spammers will not be able to harvest your email address. To avoid getting spam via the contact form you can use some form of captcha.

If you have to publish your email address make it hard to read for machines. In some countries companies are required to publish their email address on their web site. If you have to do this make it in a way that is hard to read for machines. If you put your email address into a gif image and show that image on your site, customers will be able to see your address but harvesting robots will not. Your visitors will not be able to send you mail by clicking on your email address but will have to write your address into their email client manually.

Don’t put a bunch of addresses in the Cc field. If you send the same mail to a big number of receivers, don’t put all their email addresses in the To or Cc field (especially if some of the receivers don’t know some of the others). That way you would give all of the addresses to all of the receivers. It is better to either use the Bcc field or mailing list software. Instruct your mail partners to do the same.

Use a different email address for newsletters and shopping sites. Of course sometimes you have to give your email address to people you don’t know. You might want to subscribe to a newsletter or order something from an online shop. It is advisable to use a second address for these cases so you don’t have to use your good address. If you have your own domain you might even consider to use a new email address for every shop or newsletter. If one of these email addresses starts receiving spam you can deactivate it without affecting your other mail contacts.

Last but not least – Never buy anything from a spammer. Spamming is done because it is profitable. That’s the only reason. If nobody would buy the products advertised in spam mails, spammers would not earn anything and would stop spamming. So the most important individual measure against spam is still and will be forever: Never buy anything from a spammer!

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Unsolicited email, known widely as spam, is a terrible inconvenience most Internet surfers face on a daily basis. Nowadays, its pretty easy to assume that there are more spam mails sent daily than real email messages worldwide.

Did you know that spam email could be more than just annoying? It can be downright dangerous to your financial and personal identity. Did you know that email spam is the top choice to steal information that is used today by Cyber-criminals and other organized online criminals.

How do they do this? It’s quite simple really. The spam messages they send are called phishing emails. The emails often appear to be legitimate messages from companies you conduct business with. It could be your bank, your school, a credit card company or some other website.

In the message, the cyber-criminal will state that you need to verify your account information. The message you receive will most likely include a link to a website that looks like a real website. The problem is that it is not. The website they send you to is nothing more than a data-harvesting website where they attempt to get you to outright give them your bank account numbers, social security number, credit card number, website passwords and other sensitive data.

How can you prevent this from happening to you? One simple step is to use spam filtering or blocking software in your email inbox. Now we are going to talk about the options you have for downloading free spam blockers and other software that will attempt to prevent spam from appearing in your inbox for FREE.

The first option is to use Google’s GMail, Microsoft Hotmail or Yahoo Mail as your email client. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft spend tens of millions of dollars each year developing spam blocking technology and you benefit from it for free with your account. All three of these providers offer POP3 email functionality, which means you can download other email into your webmail and use the spam filtering software to weed out spam messages, phishing emails and other unwanted mail.

If you prefer to use a POP3 email client on your computer, such as Outlook, Eudora or Windows Mail, you may want to consider a program like SpamFighter, POPFile or SpamPal. These are just a few examples.

These programs attach onto your email client and test each email that arrives in your email box. Questionable emails are normally delegated to a spam folder and outright dangerous emails can be deleted automatically if you choose.

The software use blacklist data and other features to weedout spam emails and determine legitimate messages. Sometimes legitimate messages will be flagged as spam, but you can setup rules to prevent this from happening again.

Although today there is no perfect spam prevention or anti-spam software on the market, using the techniques outlined here will go a long way in cutting down on the number of spam messages in your inbox each day.

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It’s been almost 5 years since the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 went into effect, but don’t think the law has faded by the wayside. Although anti-spammers have referred to the law as the YOU CAN-SPAM Act and are quick to point out shortcomings, the law is the law – and it is being enforced.

Anti-spam organizations as well as the FTC, Internet Service Providers and even popular sites like MySpace are becoming better and better at tracking down and prosecuting spammers.

If you’re doubtful about the legal ramifications of failing to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act, check out some of the sentences and fines that have been handed out to spammers since 2004. Fines have ranged from hundreds of thousands of dollars to hundreds of millions for spammers, and judges are handing out harsh sentences.

- 2006: online pharmacy spammer Christopher Smith was fined $5.3 million dollars as a result of a lawsuit brought by AOL. He received a 30 year sentence for charges that originated with this lawsuit.

- 2007: Jeffrey Kilbride was sentenced to over five years and James Schaffer was sentenced to six years in prison in charges related to porn spamming on AOL. Each was also fined $100,000, ordered to pay AOL $77,500, and had more than $1 million in revenue seized by the U.S. government

- 2007: Min Kim received 30-37 months in prison instead of a default 24-30 month sentence as a direct result of spamming.

- 2007: Todd Moeller was sentenced to 27 months in prison in charges relating to spamming.

- 2008: Edward Davidson was sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay almost $715,000 in fines for violating the CAN-SPAM Act and evading taxes.

This is just a sampling of some of the high-profile spam-related cases that have made the headlines over the past few years. Anyone who has had to deal with online-pharmacy and porn related spam clogging up their in-boxes is happy to see these criminals receive tough sentences and high fines.

You may not think you have much in common with these deliberate spammers, but if your latest email campaign violated the CAN-SPAM Act, you are guilty of a crime. Ignorance of the law will not help you in court, and you may be just as unpopular as these “bad guys” with your email recipients.

A Fresh Look at Compliance

It is up to every individual and business in the U.S. that relies on email as a form of advertisement or solicitation to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. Although transactional types of commercial email are excluded from the Act, it is in every business’ best interest to make account update emails or other transactional communications CAN-SPAM compliant.

The only way to be absolutely certain you are complying with the CAN-SPAM law is to read it thoroughly, and keep reviewing it. If you switch marketing companies or embark on a new email campaign strategy, or even if you take on a new marketing or affiliate partner, you must be certain they aren’t violating the CAN-SPAM law, as well.

You can read the CAN-SPAM Act at the FTC website, which is easy to access through any search engine. The Act is straightforward and simple to understand, but if you do have questions, you can contact the FTC and resolve any doubts or issues you may have via their website or telephone.

Whether you are fined or jailed for failing to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act or not, spamming is very bad business. You owe it to your online customers and email recipients to respect their privacy and personal preferences regarding the mail they receive. At the very least, the CAN-SPAM Act will ensure your business isn’t a source of frustration or worse for the Internet community.

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We all know what it is like when we receive those annoying email marketing mass send outs landing as spam in our inboxes. There are plenty of people who do nothing more than simply delete these right away. So the question that remains is what can you do to limit the number of these spam emails? If you are looking to ease the burden on your mail box from these unwanted spam mails then a good option is to use service providers such as AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo which have an option to limit spam and help filter and block potential spam e-mails. An alternative option is to unsubscribe to these mass mail outs. If it is at all possible then the best option is to unsubscribe from the mail, ensuring that the email sender is thereby aware that youre not interested in receiving further mails from them.

If you are a marketer and on the other side of this situation, then you need to consider how to avoid having your emails viewed as spam. If a large number of users opt to complain about your email, and simply click on the spam button then you run the risk and increase the probability that your emails will start to be blocked. As a marketer the thing that must remain foremost is that you source relevant information and accurate statistics on the number of spam complaints in relation to your marketing emails. Getting in touch with any good email service provider should allow you to access such information, and this is the best way to track and develop strategies to avoid being labeled a spammer.

If you want to ensure that your marketing mails are not misconstrued as spam, then the best option is to include a confirmation step with the sign-up process. This serves to reconfirm that the people whose addresses you have are definitely those who have signed up for the mails. This is especially worthwhile in case people have forgotten that they signed up for such offers. When you can reconfirm that they are still interested in receiving the marketing mails then you have an additional opportunity to remove their name and email address from your lists; thereby avoiding being labeled a spam mailer.

If you find that you are getting a particularly high level of spam complaints, then a good idea is to check out those whose profiles have not been opened or accessed in the past year. By simply sending a request for users to reconfirm that they still wish to receive your marketing emails, you have a chance to redress the balance somewhat. Quite simply, if you find that you dont get a response from some of the people on your mailing list, then you can remove their names. This means that not only do you avoid the chances of being labeled a spammer, but youre also provided with an opportunity to manage your membership list, and to remove inactive members. A little simple management of your email groups can go a long way to help you reduce the likelihood that your marketing mails end up being seen as spam.

The next step up from this is to actually check the individual profiles of those people complaining that your marketing emails are spam. By reviewing the user profiles you can check out if they are recent subscribers, how long it is since they subscribed, and what source they subscribed through and if the mechanism through which they subscribed provides enough clarity. Once you are aware of the answer to these questions then you are better positioned to strategically reduce the risk of your marketing efforts being viewed as spam; as well as being better able to devise new strategies to aid in propagating your site.

Another useful way to decrease the likelihood that users will select your marketing emails as spam is if you include a brief note in your emails to remind people that they they have subscribed to the service. If people are aware that they can elect to discontinue the service at any time, by unsubscribing via a link specifically designed for unsubscribing from the mails, then this hopefully decreases the chances of them selecting your email as spam. You will find that by including your companies name, address, registration number and contact details in the e-mail footer that this can increase peoples confidence in receiving an email from you, and this should not merely be seen as a formality but you should also be aware that it is a legal requirement in many countries.

By taking these few straightforward measures you can be sure that you will reduce the risk that you will be blocked by email providers, and ensure that you will not be viewed as a spam marketer. Instead you will continue to be able to communicate with the right people and feel confident that your messages are targeting potential customers.

Read more on How To Avoid Problems With Email Spam Complaints…

Spam email can be stopped or controlled by using a spam filter. Email filtering software can be installed by you on your computer or sometimes your internet service provider may provide a spam filter on their mail server. You will have to contact them for more details.

There are a lot of different spam software that you may choose from. Some are better than others and some you buy and others you may use for free. Popular spam software includes Mailwasher, Spambutcher, McAfee, Cloudmark and others.

Microsoft Office Outlook has some features that helps you to block spam email. The most prominent feature is probably Microsoft’s ‘Junk email Filter’ which screens out spam. Other features include the safe senders list, safe recipients list and blocked senders list.

Spam protection is an important part of managing your electronic mail. Spam protection tools can prevent email address harvesting from happening to you. Keep your computer and email program free from junk email.

There are a few ways how you can prevent spam. You should stop spammers from getting your email address by not posting it directly on your webpage or encrypting it. This prevents the ’spam bots’ from harvesting it. You also need a good spam filter as well as anti-virus software that constantly checks your incoming emails.

Once you have been spammed, you need spam solutions. To check if your email address is published on a website, use the Google search engine and do a search for your email address. Generally speaking your address is at a great risk or already compromised if Google can find it. You may need to remove your email address from any webpages that are displayed in the search results.

Junk mail usually contains advertisements, product reviews or related marketing material that sounds too good to be true. You are tricked into reading the email by a wonderful headline promising riches or the keys to unlock secrets. Do not respond to these emails or click on any of the links. Rather delete them or put them in a separate folder.

You may also receive domain name spam. This normally happens when spammers obtain domain names from the whois database. They then go ahead and send junk email to such commonly used email addresses such as ‘contact@’, ‘webmaster@’ and ‘info@’. You may want to avoid email prefixes such as these that are commonly used in conjunction with domain names.

Control or block unwanted spam by installing a spam filter on your computer or have your internet service provider filter your email on their server. You can use spam blocking software to eliminate spam from your life and save you precious time, inbox space and increase your peace of mind.

Read more on Anti Spam filtering: Do You Use Anti Spam Filtering?…

Many people today are using electronic mails (e-mails) to send and receive messages with others as it is the fastest way possible. With businesses getting their hands involved in the internet and most specifically, e-mail, our e-mails tend to receive lots of spam messages advertising everything from discount electronics to male enhancement products.

Read more on Best Anti Spam Software – Spam Bully Review…

What is Spam? According to spam abuse .net “Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. For more detail go to: www.greateducationonline.com. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send — most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.”

What Are Some of Spam’s Consequences? Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia advises, “Spam’s direct effects include the consumption of computer and network resources, and the cost in human time and attention of dismissing unwanted messages. In addition, spam has costs stemming from the kinds of spam messages sent, from the ways spammers send them, and from the arms race between spammers and those who try to stop or control spam. In addition, there are the opportunity costs of those who forgo the use of spam-afflicted systems. There are the direct costs, as well as the indirect costs borne by the victims – both those related to the spamming itself, and to other crimes that usually accompany it, such as financial theft, identity theft, data and intellectual property theft, virus and other malaria infection, child pornography, fraud, and deceptive marketing.” Also they say, “The secondary consequence of spamming is that search engine indexes are inundated with useless pages, increasing the cost of each processed query.”

According to a new study released by the Federal Trade Commission, spammers continue to harvest email addresses from public areas of the Internet, but Internet Service Providers’ anti-spam technologies can block the vast majority of spam sent to these email addresses. The FTC staff report also found that consumers who must post their e-mail addresses on the Internet can prevent them from being harvested by using a technique known as “masking.”

Why Lose Sleep Over Spammers? For more detail go to: www.greatindustrialguide.com.According to onguardonline.gov/botnet “Spammers can install hidden software on your computer in several ways. First, they scan the Internet to find computers that are unprotected, and then install software through those “open doors.” Spammers may send you an email with attachments, links or images which, if you click on or open they install hidden software. Sometimes just visiting a website or downloading files may cause a “drive-by download,” which installs malicious software that could turn your computer into a “boot.” The consequences can be more than just annoying: your Internet Service Provider (ISP) may shut down your account.”

Additionally they say “Computers that are taken over this way often become part of a robot network, known as a “bonnet” for short. A bonnet, also known as a “zombie army,” usually is made up of tens or hundreds of thousands of home computers sending emails by the millions. 

http://www.the-spam-files.com

http://www.your-gardening-tip.com

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There are many benefits of spam checking your email marketing campaigns and if you are interested in being successful then you will not ignore these benefits. In fact, if you do ignore them it is quite possible that you will not have a very successful campaign because many of your emails will go undelivered because they will be marked as spam. That’s something many email marketers are unaware of and it is very important to know and understand. With spam being such a huge problem many ISPs are taking it upon themselves to reduce spam. As a result, they scan emails before delivering them for certain phrases, layout, and key terms. Those emails that meet any of the triggers will not be delivered because they will be marked as spam. Follow the tips outlined below to help create an email marketing campaign that will be successful and won’t be deemed as spam. 

Increase Deliverability of Emails
The biggest benefit of spam checkers is that they help you improve the chances of your emails being delivered. There are enough obstacles email marketers have to deal with when it comes to having their emails opened and read and adding the issue of ISPs blocking emails is somewhat frustrating. However, any savvy and smart email marketer will pay attention to what’s going on in the industry and have a spam checker evaluate all content before it is sent out. Emails, newsletters, and the like can all be “graded” to determine their level of spam. Content that passes can be sent out as is, however content that doesn’t will need to be changed enough so that it can meet the spam checker’s qualification of “no spam.

Improve Opinion of Products/Services
Another benefit of spam checkers is that they will help you improve the overall opinion of your products and services. The reason why is that when you use a spam checker you will have an idea of how your newsletter or marketing materials will be received. When your marketing materials pass as not being spam then this is the way the majority of your customers will respond to the marketing emails, too. Today, people are fed up with spam and anything that even closely resembles it will get deleted immediately if it isn’t blocked first by the ISP. So, follow the spam checker’s suggestions and send out a newsletter or other marketing email that is spam free!

Reduce Risks of Spamming
Spamming has many risks within itself and even if you don’t think you are spamming, your recipients might. This is a fine line and one that email marketers certainly have to walk along. What’s important is that when you use a spam checker to evaluate your content you will ensure that everything you send out is on the up and up. That’s really important and it will keep you out of trouble, which could include big fines and other problems!

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It is believed that on an average, an email user receives more than 2000 Spam emails every year! By certain accounts, an email user receives more than 77 percent of the mail as spam – which is around 10 out of every 13 emails you receive! More than two-thirds of the email passing through the air waves are pure junk – unwanted and unsolicited. It, therefore, becomes imperative that you chose the right anti-spam software that meets with your requirements.

Read more on Choosing Anti-spam Software That is Right for you…

Too tired of deleting “junk mails” in your email box? Junk emails and spam are becoming a great and aggravating problem in the World Wide Web or the Internet. Some people may become so awfully annoyed with the dozens and tons of unsolicited commercial emails or spam that they are forced to change email addresses from time to time.

Spam are those mails flooding your email box with several copies of the same message. So it is like a chain letter where the source needs to send the letters, with the same message, that is, to a certain number of people to get his or her much-desired wish. Spamming is actually a scheme being used by several spam sources to impose their message to individuals who would not opt to receive it given the choice. Who are the usual spam sources? These are probably, but not limited to business-related infomercials, often for fraudulent products, and those scheming get-rich-quick ideas, or other sham services. There is no likely cost for sending spam; the cost actually is not shouldered by the spam sources but usually the recipient or the carriers of the spam.

You may wonder where on earth do these spam sources get your email address?

Researches on spam sources found out that email addresses posted on websites or in newsgroups most attracts spammers. Spammers or spam sources use a software program that can gather and record all email addresses listed on websites and all who posts to public newsgroups.

At present there is no easy way to prevent spam or junk mails. But there are some tips to avoid being tracked by spam sources.

Your first defense against spam sources, change or disguise email addresses posted in a public electronic place. It is rather ideal not to sign out any online member directories. This is like giving them your go signal to distribute your email address to spam sources.

The numbers of spam sources are ballooning everyday. So be extra conscientious when you encounter online forms that requires you to disclose your email address. In particular, pay attention to any options discussing how the address will be used. Be cautious when ticking boxes which could allow them to send you emails or share your e-mail address others.

Have several email addresses for specific purposes. This perhaps may be the best way to avoid spam sources. Instead of using a single email address in all your all transactions, use disposable email addresses which may allow you to immediately cancel the address if spam sources were able to track it. Take note that many web sites offer free email accounts and this gives you the freedom to designed one-time use of emails.

Finally, to cut down the numbers of spam sources, use spam sources filters. With the mushrooming of web hosts offering free email services, these also come in handy with a reliable spam sources filtering. Although they may not totally guard you against spam sources, but surely they can get rid of several spammers and spam sources tremendously.

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