How To Avoid Spam

Spam resembles a modern day plague. It travels all over the world bringing nothing but trouble. Luckily it's more annoying and unwanted than it is deadly. That said, just as with many physical plagues it appears that there is little you can do to stop it. Luckily enough, that is not true. There are some simple strategies you can adopt that will render you all but immune to the ravages of spam.

Index

1. Protect Your Email Address
2. Beware of Phishing
3. What To Do With Spam
4. Use a Secondary Email Address

1. Protect Your Email Address

First, I think it's important to recognize the tactics spammers use to harvest your email address. If you know how they're going to attack, then you should be able to avoid falling prey. One thing to remember is that spammers have programs that constantly search forums, and other publically available sites, for email addresses that people have posted. Thus it's a good idea to never post your email address anywhere it can be viewed by the general public.

There is another aspect of protecting your email address that I have seen very little mention of. You need to make sure that anyone who has your email address knows not to sign you up for questionable offers. Even if you are extremely careful all of your hard-work can quickly be undone with a few clicks. This could occur as innocently as a loving relative who just wants you to win that 'free' laptop that is being given away. Long story short, in order to protect your email address you also need to teach other people enough to protect theirs as well. This way everyone will be happy, and safe.

2. Beware of Phishing

It's a good idea to refrain from signing up for any offers that require an email address, unless you trust the website. If you're not confident then you should investigate the site using the methods discussed in How to Tell If A Website Is Dangerous. If the site is found safe then you shouldn't need to worry. In general I would use software such as Web of Trust (WOT) to help you to avoid dangerous sites in the first place. WOT, and similar programs, are discussed in this article about the Best Free Internet Safety Check. These are important because many nefarious websites will impersonate a trusted one in an attempt to trick users into providing them with sensitive information. This is known as phishing. Software such as that mentioned above will help to protect you from phishing scams.

3. What To Do With Spam

Now we'll worry about how to deal with the spam that actually makes it to your inbox. In general, the best course of action it to report the email and delete it without opening it. If you're not sure how to report it then you can read my article about How to Report Spam. However, if you aren't absolutely certain that an email is spam you may need to open it. Before doing this you should ensure that the program you're using to view your email is configured so that it does not automatically load external images. Just about every email viewing program, or webmail client, has this option. In fact, Thunderbird and Outlook have it disabled by default.

The reason this is so important is that if the images in an email are downloaded from a website then the spammers know that their email has arrived. More importantly, they know that your email address is active. Up until that moment they couldn't be certain that the spam was actually reaching anyone. As you might expect, once they know your email is active the amount of spam you receive will drastically increase. Your chances of stopping it, even by reporting it, drop sharply as well. Believe me when I say that it's much easier to avoid spam than it is to stop it once it's started. Not impossible, but not easy.

One of the most potent defenses against spam is your own common sense. Never respond to an email unless you know, and trust, the sender. This includes unsubscribing from emails. If you don't remember doing business with the company then I'd advise against trying to unsubscribe from the email. If you try to unsubscribe from something that turns out to be spam, they will know your email is active. In the same line of reasoning you should never click on any links, or pictures, in spam. Many of these will have code in them that alerts the spammers that the email has been opened. Even clicking on the website url could have this effect.

Also, please do your part to stop spam by refraining from purchasing anything from a site that you were directed to via spam. The reasons for this are many, but most importantly you have no reason to trust the company with your credit card information. Also, giving your money to companies that advertise in this way only continues to make it profitable for people to send spam. You will be hurting not just yourself, but everyone else. Please don't fund spam.

4. Use a Secondary Email Address

Sometimes you will find yourself in a position where you have to break some of these rules. For those times it's a good idea to have two separate email addresses. Use one only for communicating with friends and people you trust. The other should be reserved for interacting with sites you don't have complete confidence in. The benefit of this is that only your secondary email should get any spam. If the spam becomes unreasonable you can just delete the account and start another.

If you believe this article deserves anything less than 5 stars then please leave a comment below explaining how you think it can be improved, or where you find fault. In fact I would appreciate any feedback, positive or negative, so that I can improve the article. Your opinions and advice will be much appreciated.

If you found this article useful then perhaps you'd like to check out some of my others.

How to Report Spam

How to Tell If A Website Is Dangerous

How to Stay Safe While Online

How to Protect Your Online Privacy

How to Know If Your Computer Is Infected

How to Clean An Infected Computer

How to Tell if a File is Malicious

How to Install Comodo Firewall

This software category is maintained by volunteer editor Chiron. Registered members can contact the editor with any comments or suggestions they might have by clicking here.