Anti-CIV

If you’re like most people, your inbox is completely spam infested. No need to be embarrassed, it happens to the best of us- no matter how clean we try to keep our email in-boxes! Whether you are an individual email user, or the member of a non-profit organization, or CEO of a Fortune 500 Company, chances are, your email is available on a few websites out there, which helps contribute to the amount of spam emails you receive. There are ways to reduce the amount of unwanted emails you get- including the following:

Camouflage your email address

If you have a website, or you participate in internet forums, message boards and other online communities, make sure that you never display your real email address in it’s entirety. Email addresses listed online are picked up by computer programs; harvested just like the child who pick berries and fills up her basket at grandma’s house- and then distributed to spammers around the world. When you need to give out your email in a public manner like this, try doing something like this to camouflage it a bit: youremail at yahoo dot com. People can make sense of that and know to replace “at” with @ and “dot” with . You could also create a graphic image of the “@” sign; and that will prevent the harvesting of your email address by automatic crawlers.

Spam is a reality of the Internet, but not all users suffer from it at the same extent. It is definitely hard for businesses to distinguish valuable messages from unsolicited emails. For business and personal assistance alike, software companies have created special anti-spam programs meant to block the access of unsolicited mail to inbox in more than 90% of cases. Released by Microsoft in May 2004, the Exchange spam blocker is a smart tool designed for mailbox protection. The target market for this product consists of individual users and companies that receive unsolicited commercial emails in very large numbers.

Microsoft Smart Screen technology stays at the basis of the Exchange spam blocker as it is essential for the identification of the nature of the message. The access of the unsolicited mail messages can thus be stopped at the mailbox or at the gateway depending on the settings. Other Microsoft tools were used before the launch of Exchange spam blocker. At present, Microsoft no longer provides updates for the former intelligent filters, in a clustered environment. The present version of the Exchange spam blocker is capable of stopping spam in the tracks, allowing for good business development.

Internet marketing is a billion dollar industry. Rogue marketers on the Internet will do anything they can to get a fresh list of victims to send their spam email. The average computer user has had more than one instance where their inboxes are full of illicit advertisements. Black hat marketing campaigns will spend thousands of dollars to your favorite websites to find out your email and other contact information. They stick you onto their spam list and study your demographic, and then they can try and sell you their products, even if you have no interest in buying them.

Fortunately, there are many ways to stop this unwarranted and annoying advertisement with a few easy steps.

How to stop Spam:

1.) Look for websites with a comprehensive privacy policy and a spam-free approved logo. These websites will never sell your personal information to third-party sources.

2.) If a website in question does not have certification, use a secondary email account for your registration to prevent spam from getting to your main account.

3.) Stop spamming by using an email provider with a good spam filter. Examples include Yahoo.com, Gmail.com, Hotmail.com and other mainstream email programs.

Spam is annoying since you have no business with the sender. They can also be highly dangerous for your computer if you are careful. Emails must therefore be carefully checked before been opened so that you don’t get affected.

It is dangerous when there are links and other files attached to the email. You must absolutely know and trust the sender before clicking on these links or downloading the attached files as they can be malicious programs that will disrupt your machine.

Email protection software is developed by companies who try to aid the ill effects of spam. There are a couple of some free software around which still protects your computer.

These programs normally have a host of options that you can choose from in protecting your machine. However don’t go for any software as there are things that you must look for.

Checking reviews about the software is a great way to start. You can check comments left by previous users and see if it will meet your needs. Also make sure it will not conflict with your emails and that it will work smoothly with all your email clients.

Have you found that when you’re uptight about something, tired, hungry and stressed, that you tend, ever so slightly, to overreact sometimes? I received a nasty e mail the other day accusing me of spamming this person (who had subscribed / opted in to my ezine, by the way). Obviously, he was having a bad day and had lost perspective on spam. I sent him a note which I thought I’d share with you, just so we can maintain perspective in this busy day and age.

First of all, I receive over 360 spam e mails a day. That’s the price one pays for a strong Internet presence, I guess. I don’t use a spam filter as it has cost me money in the past by blocking important e mails. (Spam filters have no brains, you see; they’re simply robots.) Here’s the thing – it takes me a total of 12 minutes to delete the spam, but I save hours every day using the Internet and e mail. TWELVE MINUTES. Let’s see that in perspective. How long do you wait for your food in a restaurant? How much time do you spend commuting? I don’t spend hours attacking the spammers – I simply hit “Delete” and move on.