Tips for Stopping Spam Email

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If you have an email account, chance are that you have to deal with spam email. Spam email is defined as unwanted commercial email. For example, if you open your email inbox and you find an email from someone you’ve never heard of who is offering something commercial in nature, that is likely a spam email.

Trillions upon trillions of spam email are sent each year to virtually every Internet user around the globe. Why do the spammers do what they do? Money. Although many governments, including the United States, have taken steps to thwart spammers, spammers can still make money by sending mass spam email. While you probably delete or ignore spam email, there are enough people who act on the spam email for spammers to remain in business.

The history of spam runs virtually parallel to the history of the Internet. As long as there has been the Internet, there have been people trying to use it to make money – even if it meant using shady methods. Even though spammers are being scrutinized and prosecuted more and more, new spammers spring up everyday.

In a perfect world, there would be an easy way to eliminate spammers. Spammers are not only annoying, they cost companies millions upon millions of dollars each year. Most major companies are forced to filter their email from unwanted spam, which comes at a cost. There are also costs associated with the sending and receiving of the spam email, such as server costs and bandwidth costs.

Realistically speaking, spammers and their spam email are never going to go away. There’s simply not a realistic option that can eliminate spammers while keeping email free flowing for legit messages. With that in mind, Internet users just have to learn how to best deal with spam email. While spam email is annoying, there are tips for stopping spam email from showing up in your email inbox.

If your email inbox is already infected with spam email, it’s likely too late to undo the damage that has been done. Once your email address gets on the spam list, it’s virtually impossible to be removed. Instead of wasting your time in trying to remove your email address from a spammer’s list, the better idea is to just create a new email account. With a new email account, you can start over from scratch and make sure you don’t make any mistakes that can lead to spam email showing up in your inbox.

Today, you don’t have to worry about paying for an email address. Websites such as GMail, Hotmail and Yahoo all offer high quality email solutions. Best of all, all three are free! Sign up is easy and you can have a new email account up and running in just a couple minutes.

Once you have your new email account, you need to avoid publishing your email address anywhere on the Internet. Spammers have programs that scan through almost every page of the Internet looking for email addresses. If you have a website or a blog and you post your email address publicly, it’s just a matter of time before a spammer finds your email address. With that in mind, you should only give your email address to people you can trust.

When you input your email address in any form on the Internet, you should be highly suspicious. There have been many cases of spammers purchasing email lists from companies. While it’s a shady tactic, it’s certainly not an uncommon tactic. Unless the website you are dealing with has a very good reputation, you should avoid using your main email address when at all possible. Instead of using your main email address, make a new email address and use that email address to complete any questionable forms.

Another tip to stop spam email is to make sure you keep spyware and viruses off of your computer. Spyware and viruses are infamous for feeding information to spammers. For example, there are computer viruses that exist that search your computer for email addresses and then send that information on to spammers. Having a good firewall on your computer and scanning your computer often for spyware and viruses is extremely helpful.

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If you do happen to get a spam email in your inbox, you should absolutely avoid opening the email. If you open the spam email, a notice will be sent to the spammer that you opened their email and they will know that they have found an active email address. That will give them even more reason to spam you. By not opening a spam email, it will be difficult for the spammers to figure out if your email address is active or not.

If you accidentally open a spam email, you don’t want to compound your problem by clicking on a link that claims to remove you from a spammer’s list. While you may actually get removed from the list a small percentage of the time, it’s much more likely that this is yet another trick that a spammer is using to figure out whether the spam mail is reaching its desired destination.

As a rule, you should never click on any link within a spam email. If you click on a link, you open up the possibility of many negative things happening. For example, some spammers use links within their spam email to try to steal your passwords. In these cases, a spammer’s main goal might be identity theft through these phishing scams – which is occurring more and more on the Internet.

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You should also be on the lookout for email that seems genuine but really isn’t. You should carefully look at the subject of the email and the sender’s email address. Spammers can now insert your name into the subject of the email with ease. Just because your name is in the subject doesn’t mean that the email is safe to open. Taking your time and being cautious before you begin opening email messages is a skill that every Internet user should learn.

If you run a business, you should thoroughly explain the above procedures to each employee. All it takes is one person to open the floodgates to spam email. However, if your entire company practices good habits, you will be amazed by the decrease in spam email you will receive over time.

The bottom line regarding spam is that it is an unavoidable evil. As long as the Internet will exist, there will also be some sort of spam. While a lot of companies offer supposed spam filters and spam blockers, those programs aren’t foolproof. What is much more helpful in both the short-term and the long-term is to learn the tricks that will allow you to help stop spam email from showing up in your inbox.

Once you master the above tips, you can venture around the Internet with much less worry. By knowing what spammers are thinking, you can avoid being caught in the trap. While there is no magic potion to completely eliminate spam email, you can certainly diminish the number of spam email messages your receive and the danger associated with those messages.

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