The Best Ways To Block Spam

Its kind of amazing, the amount of unsolicited spam email that courses through the tubes of the Internet on a daily basis. Several billion of these messages are now sent every single day (even Christmas), and the companies and individuals that send them are constantly finding new ways to shill their products to an unappreciative audience. A flabbergasting 94% of all email sent in 2008 was spam! So how do you fight back and block spam from cluttering up your inbox? Unsolicited email is a waste of time and resources, and can be a sizable productivity drain. But with this guide, you will receive several time-saving tips on how to keep your inbox nice and clean.

Tip 1: Watch Your Address. 95% of all spam emails come from senders that you authorized, whether intentionally or not, to email you. Many online businesses, content sites and other destinations collect email addresses and use them to reach out to visitors. There are two methods that help to deal with these emails. The first is to carefully read any page that you input your email address into. In most cases, there will be a privacy notice that will inform you of the sites email policy, often accompanied by a checkbox that gives you the ability to refuse emails from the site. Always make sure that that box is checked. The second method is to set up an alternate email address that you only use for Web services that way, all the unwanted messages go to this other account, where they dont fight for space with your real mail. The best way to block spam is to never see it, after all.

Tip 2: Clean Your Filter. Most commercial email providers now offer a spam filter as part of their service. But these filters are only intermittently effective. Sure, they do block spam, but many of them also block important incoming emails as well. The set of rules that the spam filter uses to determine whether an electronic message is wanted or not needs to constantly evolve, and the older the software of the filter, the worse it will perform. There are several additional free and purchasable options for extra spam filtering that you can employ as an extra step in your war against spam, but the best thing to do is become acquainted with your current filters settings and adjust them every time a spam message sneaks through.

Tip 3: Call The Cops. No, not the real cops Spamcop. Spamcop is an organization that maintains a number of blacklists directories of senders that the developers of spam filters use to block spam messages. By reporting spam emails to Spamcop, the blacklists stay current and effective. Make sure to send the message with the full headers (most email programs have a Show Headers option to do this) and send it along. You can also report the spammers to their Internet Service Providers with the same information, although that can be more difficult.

I hope this information has helped you in your quest to keep a nice clean inbox. May the only Spam you see be on a plate.