How To Stop Spam

Spam is a major problem on the Internet. Spam, or unwanted email, accounts for an enormous proportion of the email sent around the Internet everyday. It blocks up email boxes, wastes your time (and money), much of it is fraulent and its an invasion of privacy.

So what can you do to stop it ?

1. Do not divulge your email to unknown parties. Subscribing to newsletters, entering competitions etc is a sure fire way to receive inboxes full of junk mail. If you want to do this then setup a 'free' email address which Yahoo, Lycos, Hotmail etc and use that. Once it becomes overun by spam set up another one.

2. If your email address is listed on your website transform it in to a picture so that it's not recognized by the spam 'robots' that come to steal email addresses for mailing lists. Consider using a HTML form to allow your visitors to contact you.

Use Javascript to 'disguise' your email address to these robots. Use the example below to display your email address safely on a website.

For example to display

myname@anydomain.com

use the following code

	<script language=javascript> 
	<!-- 
	var username = "myname"; 
	var hostname = "anydomain.com"; 
	var linktext = username + "@" + hostname; 
	document.write("<a href=" + "mail" + "to:" + username + 
	"@" + hostname + ">" + linktext + "</a>") 
	//-->
	</script>
			

3. Never ever respond to a spam email even to try and opt out of the mailing list. This will only confirm that your address is a valid one.

4. Never buy anything from a spammers email, it will only encourage them to send more. Also many spam emails are fraudulent.

5. Do not forward emails warning of viruses etc. Its a great way for spammers to cultivate email addresses.

6. Use filters and filtering software. Many ISP's now use spam filters. Use them !

7. Watch out for fake headers. These are in the subject line and are commonly "Dear Friend....." or "Here's the information you requested." or "about our meeting at....". These are spam.

8. Ensure you have antivirus installed on your computer. Many emails have viruses hidden in attachments