Understanding Anti Spam
Protection Techniques
Anti spam techniques, software and policies do work, the trick is, you have to understand the basics of spam to know how to run an effective anti spam campaign.
Spam is basically just unsolicited commercial emails that companies send to your inbox. Just as you get junk mail, you get junk email, the difference being how easy it is to send email and the relatively lower cost. Your anti spam campaign is really just a barrier between you and the commerical world of junk email.
There are a lot of reasons why these companies get your email address. You may have signed up for a newsletter or promotions with one of them, or you may have ordered a product or service that requires registration from a website first. The bottom line is that it is becoming increasingly impossible to "hide" your email addresses from the world of spammers, so anti spam software and techniques are becoming a basic fact of life online.
It is common for companies to share their mailing lists with their affiliate companies. It’s one of the benefits to having affiliations. The only problem is that most companies hide this knowledge in their “terms and agreements” of their websites. They count on the fact that most people do not read all the way through them. Of course since it is mentioned somewhere in their website, it is perfectly legal. Anti spam policies and regulations have done little to control the flood of spam, it is left to you and I to do the most we can in providing our own email security and block spam.
The average person can expect to receive anywhere from ten to twenty spam’s a day in their inbox; depending on how many promos and registrations they fill out. Once a person accepts or opens an unsolicited email, they become plagued by receiving six more in its place. It is a vicious cycle. Anti spam software is rapidly becoming a basic part of email handling online.
As the internet has reached its peak popularity during the past couple of years, so have companies followed suit and expanded their abilities to advertise. The biggest problem is that they don’t know when to stop advertising. The best place to begin with this manual is to give you a list of some of the things that you may do that will leave your inbox vulnerable to receiving spam.
Filling out a registration for an online newsletter is a common way for companies to use your inbox to advertise. Registering your inbox for promos and contests.
When installing new software it is common to register your email address for updates, but it is also leaving yourself open to spam.
Signing yourself up for just about anything online is leaving yourself open to receiving spam. Reviewing books online generally requires that you provide your email address. One Common factor in all of these things listed is that you have to volunteer your email address to a company before it can be used. Of course, there are ways for a company to get your email address without you having to give it to them directly.
Anti Spam Question#1: How
Are They Getting My Email Address?
A company can give your email address to an affiliate of theirs when you give it out, but that is not the only way that a company can get your email address. These days, companies are getting smarter in their efforts to attain email addresses. Here are some of the ways that companies are getting a hold on your inbox.
Personal Homepages
Just about everyone has a homepage of their own these days. Almost every internet service provider (ISP) offers you a place to put up your own website. The problem behind this is that when you do put up your website, you often feel obligated to leave your contact information.
This is not a very good idea if you are looking to avoid spam because you have just advertised your email address. A resourceful person will take down your information so that they can spam you later.
It is rare that anybody thinks that they can receive spam simply from putting out their contact information, but it is the easiest way to do it. Spammers can easily gather all of your information by using what is called “Harvesting Software”.
Harvesting software is basically a program that searches the internet for the @ symbol. In searching for it, they recognize that this is likely an email address and therefore it leaves you open to receive their spam. Most of the time, spammers are unaware if the email address is even active or used at all. That is why they can put out so many of them.
By harvesting as many of the addresses that use the @ symbol, spammers are basically guessing that at least 50,000 emails they send out of 1,000,000 of them will be viable. In most cases, regular people like you prove them right by responding to them.
Once you reply to one of the spam that you receive, you have announced to them that they can continue to send you email. You should know that they will often report your email address to other companies and their affiliates which will only lead to your receiving even more spam.
Registration Forms
Whenever you are interested in signing up for a service online, you would serve yourself better not to leave your email address unless you are certain that you want to receive news and product announcements from that company.
Nearly all registration forms that you fill out can lead to spam. That is why these companies ask you to fill out registration forms. Some companies leave you with the option of receiving emails and notices from them. You should always read the fine print of a registration form before you submit it.
There is usually a box that you can check if you do not wish to receive emails from the company or its affiliates. If you do not wish to receive them, you should be certain to check that box. If that box doesn’t exist, then you may want to forget the registration all together, just to be sure.
Of course, it is common for some companies to place the option on receiving emails or not and still send you emails. That is why you should always check the privacy policy of the company first. It is the law that all companies let you know whether or not they share your information with others. It is also common for people to ignore the privacy policy information.
That is why you should always read through it.
It does take some extra time on your part to go through these policies, but you can save yourself the effort of having to go through and delete spam, which is more annoying. By not going through the privacy policy, you are playing roulette with your inbox.
This registration spam also applies when you are registering a new piece of software. After you have installed the software, there is often the task of registering. Many of the companies tell you that registering it is so that you can be informed of any product upgrades for that software. But you should know that they are also used to send you every other notice about their company as well. If you don’t want to receive this type of information, you have to refuse the registration process.
| 
