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4 Spam Prevention·How can I prevent my e-mail address from being spammed?
·How do I protect my email address when registering at web sites I don't trust?
| | | Prevention is key in fighting spam. It is usually impossible to 'rescue' an e-mail address that is being spammed to death, so you need to keep it from happening in the first place.
Here are some tips to prevent your e-mail being spammed:
Don't post a real e-mail address in a public place like Usenet or the Internet. If you have to have a legitimate address, use tricks to get around the automatic e-mail harvesters used by spammers.
For example, post your e-mail address on a web site in the form of a JPEG image instead of text. Or put it in some format that is difficult to automatically decipher, like this: myemail -( at )- domain )-dot-( com. Or you can 'munge' the address, by putting extra text in like myemailSPAMSTINKS@REMOVETHIS.domain.com. Don't do anything too obvious (like myemail@NOSPAM.domain.com) or the harvesters will be able to decipher it.
If you DO get spammed, never, ever reply to it or click any links in it. This will get you more spam.
Don't pick an address that is too easy to guess. If your e-mail is joe@somepopularISP.com, you can bet you will be first on every spammer's list. This goes especially for the bigger ISPs and free e-mail services that would have lots of e-mail addresses for spammers to mail to.
Don't give your real e-mail address to anyone who doesn't really need it. If you're buying something online, or signing up for a free service somewhere, keep a free e-mail address that you use for this purpose only. That way if you get spammed it won't bother you at your real e-mail address, and you will still have the receipt if you need to go find it. When this spare address gets too full of spam, you can throw it away and start a new one since you don't have anyone legitimately contacting you with that address.
Make sure you are using a reputable ISP that has a good privacy policy. In rare circumstances, ISPs will sell their e-mail lists.
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by Sarah  | | | Many web sites on the internet require registering with your email address in order to view content or download shareware. Some of these sites are entirely ethical and do not add your email address to mailing lists without your permission or they tell you up front that you will be added, but they bury that fact in their privacy policy somewhere. Some web sites are entirely unethical and not only add you to their lists, but sell your email address to other sites and/or to spammers.
One way to combat this is to use one of the Privacy.net Stealth Email Addresses they have created specifically to reply back if the address is spammed with:
"The person who provided you with this e-mail address did not perceive value in receiving your e-mail and/or did not want to provide you with their identity. The person did not "opt-in" to your e-mail and/or did not subscribe to your mailing list. If this address is "subscribed" to a mailing list then you have not taken steps to verify subscribers to the list. Please remove me@privacy.net from your list. You may wish to consider concentrating on improving the value of your offers so consumers will request to receive them rather than taking steps to avoid receiving your e-mail."
The addresses you can use are:
me@privacy.net
me0@privacy.net
me1@privacy.net
me2@privacy.net
me3@privacy.net
me4@privacy.net
me5@privacy.net
me6@privacy.net
me7@privacy.net
me8@privacy.net
me9@privacy.net
Of course, if the web site you are registering at requires you to reply to a confirmation email before you are truly registered, then this will not work, since you'll never receive the email. But . . . since this type of registration, known as "confirmed opt-in" is only practiced by ethical web sites and mailing lists, the question of trust is answered by the fact that they use "confirmed opt-in" registration.
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by newview edited by Sarah
last modified: 2003-05-27 07:53:46 |
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