I’m sure that some of you receive tons of spam everyday. Instead of filling up your inbox with advertising you never look at, here are some tips for keeping them at low numbers. I don’t think anyone has a good way to keep spam companies from sending you junk to you once they get your address; however, there are some things you can do to minimize it.
1. Never reply or respond to the email. Most of them use a fake e-mail address, so you can’t reply to it anyways. If you try to ask to be removed, it merely tells them that your e-mail address is “real.” Just delete it.
2. Be careful what you sign up for. You don’t want to accidentally sign up or get on a list that freely sells its subscribers to anyone who will buy it and don’t inform you about it. If you are buying something from the Internet make sure the company doesn’t sell your e-mail address to a third party. It should be stated in the privacy statement (fine print).
3. Another way to get your e-mail address on these lists is to post out on the Internet with you email. Posting a classified ad or a reply on a forum is a good example. There are little programs called “E-mail Harvesters” that scan the Internet for email addresses. This has happened to me. I posted on a Microsoft website and was receiving 30 emails a day with a virus attached. If you are going to post your email address on the Internet and you want to leave your email address change it a little so harvesters can’t collect it. Example: tkriskovich(at)nwls.lib.wi.us
4. Well how do you know if the website isn’t going to send me spam when I sign up for it? You aren’t always going to know who will and who won’t. Sometimes it’s a good ideal to sign up for a free e-mail account just for this reason. Like Microsoft Hotmail or Yahoo. Let’s say you want to sign up at a website for free wallpaper. They ask you for your email address so you use your “spam” email at hotmail. They need it so they can send you your username and password to the website. This way you get your username and password and let Microsoft worry about stopping the spam.