Chances are that you get more SPAM than you care to receive. What you may not know is that you may be causing some of it!

by Chuck Cutler

Have you ever received something that told you to simply hit the "reply" button to be removed from the advertising list? Or to click a link to be removed?

Reputable advertisers will honor these requests, and ensure that you do not receive any more mail from them. But the vast majority of unsolicited ads come from less-than-honorable sources. These firms buy your email address from the hundreds of firms selling email addresses. Most of these addresses are gathered using "harvesting software", programs which gather random email addresses from various sources around the internet. Most of the time, an advertiser has no way to verify that these addresses are valid - until you hit the reply button or click that link. Once you reply to these mailings, you have just verified to the advertiser that yours is a legitimate address, and guaranteed that it will be sold to more companies next week.. And worse, at least one of the most popular mass email programs actually sends a copy of your address to the manufacturer of the software (a list merchant themselves) when you request to be removed!
What your friends are doing to you

Have you ever received an email from a friend or colleague that looks like a chain letter? Or an offer for freebies that are yours for the asking, simply by forwarding the email to a particular email box? Most people don't realize when they forward a message to 200 people that the email addresses for all those people are attached to the email. True, there is a way to send the message so the addresses are not revealed to everyone (try using the BCC: line in your email program), but most people don't realize this. The email you just forwarded gets forwarded again, then forwarded some more, and before you know it, there are hundreds or thousands of email addresses attached to this message. Once someone actually forwards this message back to the "giveaway" mailbox at the "company" involved, they have just supplied these SPAM artists with the addresses of all their friends and contacts. Guess how long it will take for you to start receiving even more junk mail??!!

How to cut back

The first thing you need to do is to realize that SPAM is a fact of life on the Internet. Do not ever reply to these messages, and stop passing around the offers that sound too good to be true.

Do not ever reply to these messages, and stop passing around the offers that sound too good to be true.

Next, get a decent email program capable of filtering your email. Programs like Eudora, Thunderbord and Outlook allow you to specify words or addresses to look out for. For example, you could tell your software to delete all emails containing the words "mortgage", "Viagra" or "XXX". This will significantly decrease the amount of junk you have to deal with.

Finally, consider getting a web-based email address such as the free ones available from Hotmail , Yahoo, Gmail and other services. Use this address for anything you post to newsgroups on the Internet, or when a web site asks you for your email address. That way the harvesting programs will not capture your real, primary email address. Give your real address only to friends and business contacts.

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