How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Spam!

Valentine's Day is fast approaching, and I (like many men) am in a state of near panic. Because I'm married, I need to come up with some kind of Valentine's Day gift for my wife that conveys the feelings I have for her in the most romantic way possible.

The only problem is that I (like many men) don't have a romantic bone in my body. Not one. My sense of romance, if it was ever there to begin with, has withered and died along with my youthful ideals, dreams of six-pack abs, and my long-range jump shot.

This poses a very big challenge for me since my wife has a keenly developed sense of romance. Like a blind person who has a tremendous sense of hearing and smell, my wife, who has been forced to live in a romantic vacuum, can sense the romance in everything. She points out beautiful sunsets and old people staring into each other's eyes. Sappy birthday cards make her cry. She wants to hold hands with me while walking in the mall. It's sickening.

But, because I love her (and I'm afraid of the repercussions), I have to try and pull a decent Valentine's Day present out of my backside. So this year, I've decided to use the awesome power of spam email to help me narrow my search. After spending several anxious seconds combing through my Deleted box in email, I plucked some candidates out for this year's Valentine.

American Blinds, Wallpaper, and More: Nothing says "I love you" like a nice set of vertical blinds. Or perhaps that crazy fruit print wallpaper that my wife had on her kitchen walls back in the 70s. In perhaps the weakest marketing move in recent memory, American Blinds, Wallpaper, and More is pitching their products as Valentine's Day gifts. For those of you desperate enough to consider this, I can suggest a few good divorce attorneys, or perhaps a good motel for the night.

Atari TV Classic 10 Games in One: The next entry into the Valentine's Day email sweepstakes is this fine video game on a joystick. Basically, you plug the joystick into your TV and choose from 10 "classic" Atari games. Just picture this . . . The lights are dimmed, the candles are burning, and there's a blanket in front of the fire. A bottle of Dom Perignon (hey, if I'm going to fantasize, I'm going all out) is chilled and open nearby. I lean over to my wife and whisper gently in her ear, "hey honey, want to play Space Invaders."

The Golf Warehouse: I golf. My wife doesn't. Not a good idea if for some reason I ever decide to have another child. Although, it would give me an opportunity to try out all the golf innuendo jokes wasted on my golfing buddies. "Honey, check out my new wood with the stiff shaft." Or, how about, "Just make a smooth stroke."

NFL Shop: Unfortunately, the thought of me in a Patriots game jersey - and nothing else - sickens even me.

Human Sex Pheromone: The subject line for this email was, "Don't Be Alone for Valentine's Day," which seems to be a very popular theme for the Internet. And with this Human Sex Pheromone, I can drive my wife wild! After 13 years of marriage, I'm not worried about driving my wife wild. I'm worried about pissing her off. And, with my luck, they'd substitute the human sex hormone for the Sasquatch sex hormone.

Which brings me to . . .

Valentines day sale: V,iagra-Diet-more: "Make this years valentines day special," is the text in the email (the punctuation mistakes are theirs, not mine). According to these fine folks, for Valentine's Day I can "lose weight, quit smoking, and enhance sex." Further, they offer "Great prices on V/i/a/g/r/a," as well as "Pain medications Skin Herpes- Hair" (again, their spelling and punctuation). Now we're talking!

I guess I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board in the search for the perfect Valentine's Day gift. And you know what? My wife is worth it. She puts up with me on a daily basis, and has even gone through the pains of childbirth twice. So I guess I'll have to expand my Valentine search beyond the confines of my email inbox.

I guess I'll have to search the Internet now. Do you think my wife would like one of those Mini-RC racecars or the Perfect Pasta Pot?

The only problem is that I (like many men) don't have a romantic bone in my body. Not one. My sense of romance, if it was ever there to begin with, has withered and died along with my youthful ideals, dreams of six-pack abs, and my long-range jump shot.

This poses a very big challenge for me since my wife has a keenly developed sense of romance. Like a blind person who has a tremendous sense of hearing and smell, my wife, who has been forced to live in a romantic vacuum, can sense the romance in everything. She points out beautiful sunsets and old people staring into each other's eyes. Sappy birthday cards make her cry. She wants to hold hands with me while walking in the mall. It's sickening.

But, because I love her (and I'm afraid of the repercussions), I have to try and pull a decent Valentine's Day present out of my backside. So this year, I've decided to use the awesome power of spam email to help me narrow my search. After spending several anxious seconds combing through my Deleted box in email, I plucked some candidates out for this year's Valentine.

American Blinds, Wallpaper, and More: Nothing says "I love you" like a nice set of vertical blinds. Or perhaps that crazy fruit print wallpaper that my wife had on her kitchen walls back in the 70s. In perhaps the weakest marketing move in recent memory, American Blinds, Wallpaper, and More is pitching their products as Valentine's Day gifts. For those of you desperate enough to consider this, I can suggest a few good divorce attorneys, or perhaps a good motel for the night.

Atari TV Classic 10 Games in One: The next entry into the Valentine's Day email sweepstakes is this fine video game on a joystick. Basically, you plug the joystick into your TV and choose from 10 "classic" Atari games. Just picture this . . . The lights are dimmed, the candles are burning, and there's a blanket in front of the fire. A bottle of Dom Perignon (hey, if I'm going to fantasize, I'm going all out) is chilled and open nearby. I lean over to my wife and whisper gently in her ear, "hey honey, want to play Space Invaders."

The Golf Warehouse: I golf. My wife doesn't. Not a good idea if for some reason I ever decide to have another child. Although, it would give me an opportunity to try out all the golf innuendo jokes wasted on my golfing buddies. "Honey, check out my new wood with the stiff shaft." Or, how about, "Just make a smooth stroke."

NFL Shop: Unfortunately, the thought of me in a Patriots game jersey - and nothing else - sickens even me.

Human Sex Pheromone: The subject line for this email was, "Don't Be Alone for Valentine's Day," which seems to be a very popular theme for the Internet. And with this Human Sex Pheromone, I can drive my wife wild! After 13 years of marriage, I'm not worried about driving my wife wild. I'm worried about pissing her off. And, with my luck, they'd substitute the human sex hormone for the Sasquatch sex hormone.

Which brings me to . . .

Valentines day sale: V,iagra-Diet-more: "Make this years valentines day special," is the text in the email (the punctuation mistakes are theirs, not mine). According to these fine folks, for Valentine's Day I can "lose weight, quit smoking, and enhance sex." Further, they offer "Great prices on V/i/a/g/r/a," as well as "Pain medications Skin Herpes- Hair" (again, their spelling and punctuation). Now we're talking!

I guess I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board in the search for the perfect Valentine's Day gift. And you know what? My wife is worth it. She puts up with me on a daily basis, and has even gone through the pains of childbirth twice. So I guess I'll have to expand my Valentine search beyond the confines of my email inbox.

I guess I'll have to search the Internet now. Do you think my wife would like one of those Mini-RC racecars or the Perfect Pasta Pot?
Chuck Smith is the brain from which Chuck Smith's Brain Sediment
falls. Chuck has led a sheltered life in high tech, and is not
often let out of his wife's sight. Visit his site to subscribe to the twice monthly Chuck Smith's Brain Sediment ezine.
http://www.brainsediment.com
mailto:subscribe@brainsediment.com

SPAM, Spam & more SPAMGillian Tarawhiti

by Gillian Tarawhiti, Community Training Centre, http://www.millionairerippleeffect.com
For the new and possibly the old netpreneurs SPAM is the common term for electronic 'junk mail' - unwanted messages sent to a persons' email account or mobile phone.
The SPAM act (CAN-SPAM ACT, EUROPEAN SPAM ACT, AUSTRALIAN SPAM ACT) identifies SPAM as unsolicited commercial electronic message(s). The act covers email, instant messaging, SMS (mobile phone text messaging) and MMS (mobile phone graphic messaging).
Under the SPAM act all commercial electronic messages must meet the following conditions. Any message that doesn't meet all three of these conditions is defined as SPAM.
1.You must have CONSENT
2.You must IDENTIFY yourself
3.You must provide a way to unsubscribe
If we use this forum as an example of all three, you will find that in order to gain access to this forum in terms of posting. You had to complete a registration that in part advised that you agreed to certain terms and conditions. In doing so you EXPRESSED CONSENT.
By registering to this forum you have also IDENTIFIED yourself beit as a non-de-plum
In terms of unsubscribing, every email that you receive from this forum has a unsubscribe in it, also you have an 'ignore' facility which in part as the same effect.
COMMERICIAL ELECTRONIC MESSAGE
To decide whether an electronic message is 'commercial', the Act looks at all of the following:
the content of the message
the way in which the message is presented; and
any links, phone numbers or contact information in the message
RAMIFICATIONS OF SPAM TO YOU!
If you have been accused of SPAM activities you will be asked to prove that you have not committed the offence. If you are unsuccessful in that approach you IP (Internet Provider) will withdraw all services to you i.e. close your website.
If you are using an autoresponder to hold your subscriber list and are sending messages via that service, your autoresponder will automatically suspend your account unless you can prove your innocence.
Penalties for breach of the Act range up to $1.1 million per day; the legislation also allows for the making of orders for spammers to relinquish profits and pay compensation to spam victims.
So in short, there are 3 things that can keep you in the clear of such violations.
1.Get Consent - Expressed or Inferred
2.Identify yourself
3.Provide a way for people to unsubscribe from receiving further emails
Before I finish this article, I would like to add that this is just a brief overview of the act and that it would be in your best interest to actually read and implement the practices.
by Gillian Tarawhiti, Community Training Centre, http://www.millionairerippleeffect.com
For the new and possibly the old netpreneurs SPAM is the common term for electronic 'junk mail' - unwanted messages sent to a persons' email account or mobile phone.
The SPAM act (CAN-SPAM ACT, EUROPEAN SPAM ACT, AUSTRALIAN SPAM ACT) identifies SPAM as unsolicited commercial electronic message(s). The act covers email, instant messaging, SMS (mobile phone text messaging) and MMS (mobile phone graphic messaging).
Under the SPAM act all commercial electronic messages must meet the following conditions. Any message that doesn't meet all three of these conditions is defined as SPAM.
1.You must have CONSENT
2.You must IDENTIFY yourself
3.You must provide a way to unsubscribe
If we use this forum as an example of all three, you will find that in order to gain access to this forum in terms of posting. You had to complete a registration that in part advised that you agreed to certain terms and conditions. In doing so you EXPRESSED CONSENT.
By registering to this forum you have also IDENTIFIED yourself beit as a non-de-plum
In terms of unsubscribing, every email that you receive from this forum has a unsubscribe in it, also you have an 'ignore' facility which in part as the same effect.
COMMERICIAL ELECTRONIC MESSAGE
To decide whether an electronic message is 'commercial', the Act looks at all of the following:
the content of the message
the way in which the message is presented; and
any links, phone numbers or contact information in the message
RAMIFICATIONS OF SPAM TO YOU!
If you have been accused of SPAM activities you will be asked to prove that you have not committed the offence. If you are unsuccessful in that approach you IP (Internet Provider) will withdraw all services to you i.e. close your website.
If you are using an autoresponder to hold your subscriber list and are sending messages via that service, your autoresponder will automatically suspend your account unless you can prove your innocence.
Penalties for breach of the Act range up to $1.1 million per day; the legislation also allows for the making of orders for spammers to relinquish profits and pay compensation to spam victims.
So in short, there are 3 things that can keep you in the clear of such violations.
1.Get Consent - Expressed or Inferred
2.Identify yourself
3.Provide a way for people to unsubscribe from receiving further emails
Before I finish this article, I would like to add that this is just a brief overview of the act and that it would be in your best interest to actually read and implement the practices.

Gillian Tarawhiti, is Founder and CEO of Community Training Centre, an Australian-based Internet Marketing firm that works with individuals and organisations
2004 Permission is granted to reprint this article in print or on your web site so long as the paragraph above is included and contact information is provided to www.millionairerippleeffect.com.

CAN-SPAM Rules for Internet Marketers

http://www.TheEzine.net

On January 1, 2004, the "CAN-SPAM Act", short for "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003", took effect. Marketers who send any form of commercial email as defined by the act will need to comply with CAN-SPAM rules in order to avoid legal consequences. The act was designed to reduce unsolicited commercial messages, sent both as email and to wireless devices such as cell phones.

There is of course much debate about how effective this law will prove to be in stopping spam. After all, spammers can easily send their messages from email servers located overseas, in locations beyond the effective reach of US enforcement efforts. Many marketers feel that spam will continue flooding us as ever, while legitimate, opt-in marketers, who want to comply with the law, will have to jump through time-consuming and sometimes expensive extra hoops to be able to send email. In fact, many believe that the act will lead to an upsurge in spam regardless, because it seems to be legal as long as it meets the requirements of the act.

For marketers to comply with the law, they need to follow some simple guidelines provided for in the legislation. Virtually all marketers who run email lists are already in compliance with most of the law. Generally, any business communicating with existing customers or prospects by mail must include in their emails a valid return email address that is active for at least 30 days after commercial email is sent; a physical mailing address, valid and NOT a P.O. Box; and a way for recipients to opt-out of future mailings. In addition, the subject line must not be misleading or deceptive, state in some way the message is an advertisement or commercial in nature, and the marketer must honor opt-out requests. Again, probably none of that is too much different from what you're already doing, except perhaps for the addition of the physical mailing address.

If you send mail from one of the online mailing services, chances are they've already asked you to make necessary changes to comply with the act. But if you run your own autoresponder, have you remembered to add your physical mailing address so that it will be placed on every email you send out? Have you added it to any one-time messages that you may send from the autoresponder accounts that may be included in your hosting account? Have you added it to any scripts that you have that generate email?

If you receive any opt-out requests, you must stop sending email to the requesting account within 10 business days. Again, for marketers using autoresponder software, that usually happens immediately, so no worries there. You may also not sell or lease email addresses of those who opt-out of your mailings without their consent.

Certain email is exempted from the CAN-SPAM regulations. For example, email that is transactional in nature, or that is a "relationship" message, may not be covered. This would include, for example, sales receipts, announcements of product bug patches, change of membership login information, etc. Still, to be safe, it may be best to make sure all of your email communication is compliant. CAN-SPAM is vague about the rules as they apply to existing and inactive business relationships, and when such relationships end.

Now that you're aware of the act's requirements, you'll want to review every email you send, from every site you own, to comply with the act and avoid the severe civil and criminal penalties for non-compliance. This article isn't intended to be legal advice - see a professional for that.
http://www.TheEzine.net

On January 1, 2004, the "CAN-SPAM Act", short for "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003", took effect. Marketers who send any form of commercial email as defined by the act will need to comply with CAN-SPAM rules in order to avoid legal consequences. The act was designed to reduce unsolicited commercial messages, sent both as email and to wireless devices such as cell phones.

There is of course much debate about how effective this law will prove to be in stopping spam. After all, spammers can easily send their messages from email servers located overseas, in locations beyond the effective reach of US enforcement efforts. Many marketers feel that spam will continue flooding us as ever, while legitimate, opt-in marketers, who want to comply with the law, will have to jump through time-consuming and sometimes expensive extra hoops to be able to send email. In fact, many believe that the act will lead to an upsurge in spam regardless, because it seems to be legal as long as it meets the requirements of the act.

For marketers to comply with the law, they need to follow some simple guidelines provided for in the legislation. Virtually all marketers who run email lists are already in compliance with most of the law. Generally, any business communicating with existing customers or prospects by mail must include in their emails a valid return email address that is active for at least 30 days after commercial email is sent; a physical mailing address, valid and NOT a P.O. Box; and a way for recipients to opt-out of future mailings. In addition, the subject line must not be misleading or deceptive, state in some way the message is an advertisement or commercial in nature, and the marketer must honor opt-out requests. Again, probably none of that is too much different from what you're already doing, except perhaps for the addition of the physical mailing address.

If you send mail from one of the online mailing services, chances are they've already asked you to make necessary changes to comply with the act. But if you run your own autoresponder, have you remembered to add your physical mailing address so that it will be placed on every email you send out? Have you added it to any one-time messages that you may send from the autoresponder accounts that may be included in your hosting account? Have you added it to any scripts that you have that generate email?

If you receive any opt-out requests, you must stop sending email to the requesting account within 10 business days. Again, for marketers using autoresponder software, that usually happens immediately, so no worries there. You may also not sell or lease email addresses of those who opt-out of your mailings without their consent.

Certain email is exempted from the CAN-SPAM regulations. For example, email that is transactional in nature, or that is a "relationship" message, may not be covered. This would include, for example, sales receipts, announcements of product bug patches, change of membership login information, etc. Still, to be safe, it may be best to make sure all of your email communication is compliant. CAN-SPAM is vague about the rules as they apply to existing and inactive business relationships, and when such relationships end.

Now that you're aware of the act's requirements, you'll want to review every email you send, from every site you own, to comply with the act and avoid the severe civil and criminal penalties for non-compliance. This article isn't intended to be legal advice - see a professional for that.

John Calder is the owner/editor of The Ezine Dot Net.
Subscribe Today and get real information YOU can use to help
build your online business today! http://www.TheEzine.Net
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(You may reprint this article in full in your newsletter and/or web site)

Getting the satellite TV deals that suit you the best

Nowadays, hundred of satellite TV scam websites had pop up as satellite TV become one of the best sellers in the town. Buying satellite TV online become more and more risky as consumers always find themselves trapped in fake or overrated deals. Scammers, fraud deals, high shipping costs, late installation, bad customer services, outrages cancellation fees …getting your satellite TV systems can be quite a nightmare.

If you wonder how you can avoid all these hassles and get the right satellite TV deals, here’s what I suggest:

• Get the right satellite TV providers
• Get the right satellite TV programming package
• Get the right satellite TV retailers

Getting the right satellite TV providers

Dish Network and DirecTV are currently the majors in United States satellite TV business. These two satellite TV providers offer around the same deals and they both are equally popular. What differ these two satellite companies are their monthly subscription fees, start up cost, as well as their programming choices.
In term of monthly subscription fees, DirecTV is more expensive than Dish Network. DirecTV basic programming package starts at around $40 while Dish Network cost around $30 monthly for the standard packages.

As you can see from their promotional campaign, common Dish Network deals offer free satellite TV system up to 4 rooms, free basic Dish Home Protection Plans, free shipping, free standard installations, free HD upgrades, free DVD player, and DVR that records up to 100 hours. While offering around the same thing, DirecTV normally charged a small amount of shipping fees if you order more than two satellite TV systems.
Programming channels are more or less the same for both Dish Network and DirecTV. However, DirecTV is much more popular among sports fans as they offer some attractive premium sport packages like NFL Sunday Ticket that Dish Network doesn't have. On the other hand, the advantage with Dish Network is that you get more International and HD ready channels.

Getting the right programming package

If you are going after Dish Network, standard programming packages are American’s Top 60, 120, 180, and Everything Pak; DirecTV standard programming packages are DirecTV Total Choice standard, Plus, and Premier. I will not get in depths in this discussion as the article is not meant for promoting any one of these packages. If you are not sure on which programming package to go for, I suggest you to compare them side by side.  When selecting satellite TV programs, be aware that you should get what is right for you. Avoid getting extra programming package that you have no enough time to enjoy it.

Getting the right satellite TV retailers

A relaible satellite TV retailer is most crucial in getting a good satellite TV deal. Picking up the right retailer can earn you a bargain in the deal; however bumping into an inexperience retailer or scammers will definitely bring nightmares to you.

Often, satellite TV scammers claim that they offer the best satellite dish deals and promotions. They might offer fake promise on their deals, extremely low monthly subscription rates, next-day installation, and unlimited number of free satellite systems to lure satellite TV shoppers. But once customers signed up, they find hidden activation fees, high shipping costs for free extras, installation dates continuously missed or pushed back, as well as outrageous cancellation fees.
In order to avoid such hassles, I suggest satellite TV shoppers to shop only from reputable retailers. The Internet gives us the convenience to research about the satellite TV retailers. Learn about the background of those retailers before you key in your credit card info: Are they an authorized retailer? Are they in business for long enough? Are they offering secure order page if they offer online purchase? How is the customer feedback on their services? Do they provide customer services via phone calls? Is the order 100% guaranteed with full refunds?

For more details, check out some third party reviews on satellite retailers at this page:

Conclusion

Without doubts, satellite TV deals are very good bargains if you manage to get things right. Low monthly subscription costs, high picture quality, wide programming selections, and lots of freebies for first time customer. However, consumers are advised not to spend within means and should avoid unnecessary purchase. Do not get more satellite TV systems than you need just because retailers are giving them for free,  you might end up paying extra monthly subscriptions for something that you don’t use.

Teddy LC., expert writter on consumer products reviews. Check out his latest satellite TV related website and get recommendations on DirecTV or Dish Network deals, review Dish Network and DirecTV retailers, and other issues on

Stuffing the Spammers!

I'm really, truly fed up with spam. Every day when the spam arrives and Norton Security moves it into the Norton Anti-spam folder of my Outlook email client, I wonder how anyone can be so incredibly stupid as to waste their time sending me such garbage.

Let's face it; I never read it. I never buy anything from unsolicited sources or do anything as a result of spam. I detest it! And God knows I don't need viagra, however many times it's offered.

What fool would send anyone a message about a mortgage application approval when he has owned his house for years?

What fool would write offering me a peep at her new porn site? I'm not interested in porn ... I prefer the real thing. Offer me something tangible and I may get excited.

I guess you probably feel the same.

Unfortunately, the plague of spam isn't going to fade away any time soon, although authorities (at least in Australia) have started taking legal action and imposing hefty penalties for spamming. Hallelujah!

As a last resort, I decided to make my own small contribution to reducing the spam plague. If each of us does something, the cumulative effect will be damaging to the spammers. Here's what I did. I've collected thousands of email addresses that arrived in spam messages and ended up in my blacklist. I decided I'd give those people using automatic harvesting software an opportunity to suck up all those addresses and reuse them.

I've dedicated quite a few pages on my site that have nothing but the email addresses from the blacklist. That is, the addresses of the spammers, most of which are false and don't lead to anyone ... at least not to anyone who can read (otherwise I'd include an obscene message).

When the spam harvesting software goes through my site, it won't find a single working email address in my site proper, but it will stumble on a goldmine of addresses and load them into it's database. It will be stuffed full of email addresses, none of which work. The spammers will pay to send them out and they'll bounce somewhere, hopefully right back to them.

Imagine what would happen if we all did that? There would be so many dud addresses floating around that harvesting would be a waste of time. the spammers would all go away and do something legitimate ... perhaps.

You and I would get some relief from these annoying intruders in our email inboxes.

If you are in a position to load your site with a few thousand dud email addresses, why not give it a go and Stuff the Spammers?

First released May 2005. Copyright Robin Henry 2005

Robin Henry is an educator, human resources specialist and Internet marketer whose firm, Desert Wave Enterprises, helps individuals and businesses improve their performance by using smart processes, smart technology and personal development. He lives at Alice Springs In Central Australia. Visit Desert Wave Enterprises.

How To Identify Spam

Most of us have opened our email program and found, alongside correspondence from people that we know, offers for products from commercial web sites. Some of these emails we expect. We have asked to be notified of sales and other opportunities or joined a mailing list offered by the company.

Many times, however, the offers are from companies that we have never done business with and may have never even heard of. This is Spam, unsolicited bulk email, and can quickly lead to a massive overload of your inbox.

Identifying Spam as soon as it occurs is the first step to preventing it from happening again. Once your email address is in circulation with these companies, you are well on your way to a very nasty problem. Advertising from legitimate companies is one form. The rest are for illegal services, pornographic material, questionable products, and fraudulent schemes. It is invasive and many times illegal. Spam is the worst form of junk mail and a typical reason why many people have to change their email addresses.

In best cases, the clue can be found in the subject line. If you are offered quick money or a chance to find your long lost high school classmate, you can probably guess that it is Spam.

You may be amazed that, as you read your email, that these companies claim a right to send you this email because you have a relationship with one of their partners or affiliates. All that this may mean is that they bought your email address from another company with dubious privacy policies. It is still Spam.

Spammers will try to trick you. Unfortunately for us, Spammers only need a response rate, by some estimates, of 0.0001% in order to be profitable. This means that they will use practically any measure to get you to open it before hitting the delete button. You may receive an email from Grandma or one asking for help in the subject line. Before you know it, you are reading their advertisement, if only out of curiosity.

Check the dates and times on any email that you are unsure of. These companies know that many email programs will sort the inbox by the earliest mail sent. As a result, they place false send dates and times on their Spam hoping that you will open them first.

The worst has to be the ones that seem to come from companies that you know and trust. They may claim to be from your internet service provider in the subject line or have a similar address to that companys name. It may look like it is from the accounts payable department of a major law firm.

Spammers count on your curiosity and hope that you will respond. Even if you dont buy anything, they now know that your email address is connected to a live person and, if nothing else, can sell that address to someone else.

Read the To and From fields in any questionable email that you receive. If the To field is empty or filled with an anonymous address, then you have Spam. An anonymous address is typically something like freeoffer@happydays.com.

An address from someone that you do not know through an account at hotmail, yahoo, or msn is probably Spam. These are anonymous, easy to get accounts that spammers use and then discard when they are done. By the time the Service Provider has been made aware that spam is originating from these accounts, the spammer is gone.

Scrambled, random addresses (X12YT853@yahoo.com) from accounts like these are definitely not to be trusted regardless of the content.

Finally, if the email contains a story in which you are asked to do anything to help anyone, check the story out online. There are several great websites like truthorfiction.com that will help you sort through any potential scams or hoaxes perpetuated through email.

These stories can range from silly pranks to dangerous fraud schemes and may need to be reported to the proper authorities before someone, like you, finds their bank account drained.

Lewis Leake is the webmaster of eMailCash.com. There you will find articles, resources, books and product reviews on eMail Marketing Strategies and Tactics. You will also find a number of articles on SPAM and how to prevent it. Get Your FREE Mini-Report Spam and It's Consequences!

What To Do When You Get Spam

When you go to your mailbox and find pieces of junk mail mixed in with important correspondence, you throw it out. It is a mild nuisance and you probably dont even give it a second thought. Unfortunately, most people do the same when spam arrives in their inbox. They just delete it.

While that does get rid of an individual email, more needs to be done to control what can become an overwhelming problem. Liken spam to cockroaches; see one in your cabinet and you know that you likely have an infestation that needs to be dealt with swiftly.

To begin with, do not respond to the spam ever. There are usually two ways that spam recipients make this mistake. First is the opt-out clause that appears at the bottom of the email. It appears to be a legal statement giving you the right to remove yourself from this mailing list. Unless you legitimately authorized the company to send you mail, in which case this is not spam, do not follow this link. Most often this link is simply a way for the spammers to identify your email address as valid. Now they can sell your address to other spammers and thank you for making their work easier by continuing to send you the spam you didnt want in the first place.

The second manner in which this error occurs is when, out of total frustration, you reply to the sender with a firm statement of your disgust. This usually happens when the spam is pornographic material and despite your best efforts, keeps appearing in your inbox. Sometimes the reply will not work because the senders email address is a fake one and it will just bounce back to you as undeliverable. Count yourself lucky because the alternative means that they now have a confirmation of your address.

Next, read the email header. The header contains the full path of computers through which the email passed to get to you. Most pieces of email pass through at least four computers the spammers, their ISP, your ISP, and finally yours. Since the stated from address is usually a fake one, this is the most reliable way to track down the spammers ISP, at the very least.

Each computer that the spam travels through will add lines to the header stating who they are, who the mail came from, and where they are sending it. Headers can seem complicated, but in most cases you will be able to at least recognize other ISPs. If your mail is through Yahoo and you see juno.com in the mix, then you know that you can report the spam to Juno.

When reporting spam, you will need to cut and paste the full header path into the email to give the experts the opportunity to track down the offender. To read an email header, you typically just right click on the email and then choose properties, options, or header depending on which email program you are using.

Finally, forward the spam to a number of authorities. The first would be the spammers ISP. If you cannot tell who that may be, send the spam to your ISP. Additionally, several websites are available to help you report spam, like spamcop.net.

Second, forward the spam to the Federal Trade Commission at uce@ftc.gov. While they will not take action on your behalf, they will add the spam to a database compiled on known UCE (unsolicited commercial email).

If the spam is a 419 Scam, or Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud, fax a copy of the email and its headers to the United States Secret Service. You will know this spam when you read it an exiled African leader of some sort needs your help and bank account information. These scams have defrauded many and need to be taken seriously.

Now you may delete the spam.

Lewis Leake is the webmaster of eMailCash.com. There you will find articles, resources, books and product reviews on eMail Marketing Strategies and Tactics. You will also find a number of articles on SPAM and how to prevent it. Get Your FREE Mini-Report Spam and It's Consequences!

The Trouble With Spam Is....

Reacting to spam won't solve it. Taking a pro-active approach is sometimes all that's needed.

Each day we all face the same challenge. Spam. It doesn't matter if you're a home computer user or the head of IT for a multinational limiting or totally preventing the distribution of junk email to your computer(s) is now a daily chore.

The sheer frustration that spam causes combined with the number of lost man hours adds up to junk email being a very real problem for all involved. You have to filter through all the junk to find your own personal or work email. This on its own is annoying enough. When you consider the security risks from spyware, trojans, diallers and attempted identity theft spam becomes much more than just an annoyance - it becomes a minefield for any computer user.

So what can you do to block spam? The first step each user should take is to simply limit the number of people who know your personal email address. If you have a work email address then just use it for work. For home users only distribute your email address to people you know and trust. This simple move can cut your spam problems by 50%.

But what about all those online forms I need to fill in? No problem. Use a free email service like Hotmail or Gmail for this purpose. Treat it as a throwaway account that you can use as a buffer between your true personal email address and the rest of the world. Let it fill up with junk email and then just login once a week and delete everything you see.

Your password. It's amazing how many people set the password for their email account to abc123 or something similar. These passwords are incredibly easy for spammers to guess and would give them easy access to your mail account. The password for your email account should follow corporate standards of being 6 - 8 characters long and be alphanumeric (a mixture of numbers and letters). Make it longer if you can. Using a weak password is just asking for trouble.

If you're already receiving a ton of spam then you'll need to invest in a spam blocker. There are free spam blockers you can download and also also their paid equivalents. A great spam blocker can cost you as little as $30 and you'll see an immediate reduction in the amount of spam you're receiving.

Over and above installing software on your computer (especially for Mac users as your choices are limited) you could sign up for one of the web based challenge response spam blockers like Mailblocks or SpamArrest. Both of these services are ideal for somebody who's on the move a lot. Also because they're web based there's no software to install so they're perfect for Mac or PocketPC/Palm users.

Taking a pro-active anti spam stance is the next step. If you get junk email from people then check the mail headers and report any offensive email to the hosting company or ISP involved. Never, ever reply to spam directly. This simply confirms to the spammer that your email address is active. Also never click on any hyperlinks in any junk email - this again confirms your existence and can lead to a virus being downloaded directly onto your PC. Filter the spam, report the abusers, delete the remaining junk email.

Spam can be stopped. Not by some corporate giant or genius programmer. It can be stopped by each of you individually. Spammers rely on the widespread availability of email addresses and for people to reply to these emails or click on the links within the emails. The sooner people stop reacting emotionally to spam and simply filter, report and delete the offensive mail itself the sooner the lucrative market of bulk email will dry up for the spammers.

This article was provided courtesy of Spam-site.com which reviews spam blocker software and other anti spam utilties.

Will Spam-Blogging Be The Death Of Blogging?

Spam blogging will force search engines like Google to change their ranking algorithms and eventually assign less value to links from blogs.

Technorati reports that 30,000 - 40,000 new blogs are being created each day.

According to David Sifry, part of the growth of new blogs created each day is due to an increase in spam blogs.

What are spam blogs? They are fake blogs that are created by robots in order to foster link farms, attempted search engine optimization, or drive traffic through to advertising or affiliate sites.

They contain robot-generated posts made up of random words, with the title linking back to the blogger's own pages.

Many bloggers see them as a way of getting their pages indexed quickly by Google and other search engines.

Sifry estimates that about 20% of the aggregate pings Technorati receives are from spam blogs. Most of this fake blog spam comes from hosted services or from specific IP addresses.

Those in the SEO world are well aware of this. There are even services like Blogburner that encourage creation of spammy blogs and spam-pinging to get your sites indexed quickly.

As a blogging evangelist, I wholeheartedly recommend blogging as an SEO tactic. But I also emphasize that you should use your blog for more than just SEO.

At the Spam Squashing Summit, blog services decided to collaborate to report and combat blog-spamming.

Technorati currently claims to catch about 90% of spam and remove it from the index. They also notify the blog hosting operators.

But I believe that they are fighting a losing battle. As I write this there are software and robots being created that will create spam-blogs more efficiently and in ways that will be harder to detect.

The SEO "black hats" are always far ahead of the technology and safeguards that these services can put in place.

Take down a few spam-blogs and hundreds more will arise.

Blogging evangelist and PR guru, Steve Rubel,  sums up this dilemma rather well on his Micropersuasion blog.

He believes that its human nature for people to exploit new technologies, and that it's really up to the search engines to help put a stop to these by undercutting the economics of blogspam, much like they did with nofollow and comment spam.

But the trade-off is that such a move would also reduce any impact that blogs have on search results.

Fact: The more you abuse a technology, the less effective it becomes.

Spam blogging will force search engines like Google to change their ranking algorithms and eventually assign less value to links from blogs.

Unless they put in safeguards to prevent robots from taking over, its safe to assume that blogging will become less effective as an SEO tactic over time.

Of course, the spammers will then just have to find new avenues and means to spam the engines.

But why ruin a good thing in the first place? Blogs are much more than just tools for search engine optimization.

A blog can be a great tool for personal branding and building relationships with your website visitors and customers.

Instead of using blogs for spam, focus on building content-rich sites and getting high-value links to them.

Don't restrict yourself to just the SEO benefits of blogging.

Appreciate the value that blogs can add to your marketing and public relations strategy and use them the way they were meant to be used.

Priya Shah is the CEO of eBrand360 and publishes an internet marketing newsletter. Her areas of specialization include search engine optimization and business blogging. Subscribe to her free eCourse on Blogging for Marketers

This article may be reprinted as long as the resource box is left intact and all links are hyperlinked.

There is Gold in that Spam Search Engine Tactics for the 21st

<b>There is Gold in that Spam Search Engine Tactics for the 21st Century<BR>Its not often youll hear anyone praising spam. Until today.</b></p><b>There is Gold in that Spam Search Engine Tactics for the 21st Century<BR>Its not often youll hear anyone praising spam. Until today.</b></p> <P>Ok, ok, ok -- we all hate it. When I check my e-mail box for the numerous domains that I own, I have hundreds if not thousands of spam messages. It had gotten to the point that I could not tell between real e-mail and spam. I remember not logging into one account or a week, only to find out when I did that there were over 1,000 e-mail messages of which 995 were spam!<BR><BR>First off, what kind of strategies can you use to fight spam? Here are a few that have worked very well for me:<BR><BR>1.DO NOT put your e-mail address on your website in plain text. There are several other ways to give your e-mail address out. The one that seems to work very well is by creating a small GIF or JPG image and placing your e-mail address in there then displaying the image on your website.<BR>2.Make use of FORMS. Rather than have your visitors e-mail the domain, create a form for them and have the form e-mail the domain OR another address. This is a very successful way for visitors to contact you. You could go one step further, and add a verification word to the form so that the form does not get abused.<BR><BR>Now that we have talked about two simple ways to fight spam, lets talk about why you may not want to chuck all your spam message away. Am I crazy? Nope, just some common sense niche building techniques at work here.<BR><BR>You remember those supermarket tabloids, right? Have you ever leafed through them? Have you ever read the advertising in them? You know, it is pretty expensive to place advertisements in those magazines mainly because of the distribution they have and because people buy them. Now do you think that an individual will pay thousands of dollars per year to advertise in the tabloid, it if was not delivering results?<BR><BR>Advertising is only placed in magazines, newspapers and tabloids if they deliver results. Companies spend tens of thousands of dollars (if not more) ensuring that their advertising is delivering the expected results. They track and monitor everything that they do, nothing is left to chance. But you knew all this already.<BR><BR>I'm not trying to equate tabloid advertisements with spam -- but I think you get the picture.<BR><BR>So how can you find gold in spam? Simple. When you check your message, see if there is one type of message that you are receiving more than the others. Filter past the gambling, and adult entertainment and focus on stuff that you and I could use every day. You will see e-mail advertisements for education, careers, divorce planning, private investigations and several other areas of interest.<BR><BR>If you have been paying attention to this, then you now know that maybe you should be targeting those niche areas. I say niche, because if you look at the content of the messages you will see that they are very specific. Some of the education messages I get are for particular schools, or programs like website development, search engine optimization, business management, small business development or entrepreneurship. Same with the career e-mails I get, they are always targeted at a specific profession nursing, truck drivers or other medical related fields.<BR><BR>So how can this help you? Supposed you are getting 100 messages per week about careers. You go through these and group them by profession. Once you have done this you notice that 75% of the messages are about nursing. You now have a profession you can target for additional research.<BR><BR>You first start performing some preliminary research to see if this niche is worth targeting.<BR><BR>If your research shows that it is worth pursuing, then look at what types of phrases are being used and who is in the top 10, 20 or 30 sites providing this type of information. Look at the pure search engine listings, but also pay attention to the paid advertising since this will give you a good idea if you will make money by targeting this niche.<BR><BR>Once you have done your homework, and find that this is indeed a field worth pursuing then it is time to start developing your website, and thinking about the type of content you will be offering to your site visitors. You may want to think about offering free courses on nursing, what it is, how someone can become a nurse basically what you would want to know before you decided to pursue this as a career.<BR><BR>It is very easy building your business, if you spend a little time and look at the unconventional ways of determining what business you need to get into that is, what niche you should be targeting. <BR><BR>A little research and your spam e-mail box could help you make a name for yourself in the world of internet marketing.</P> <p> <h1>ABOUT THE AUTHOR</h1> <br> <div><P>Mohammed Bhimji is the owner, and developer of Turbo Traffic Engine <A rel="nofollow" href="http://www.turbotrafficengine.com">www.turbotrafficengine.com</A>&nbsp; an application that makes it easy to develop niche portal websites that are optimized for the search engines.</P></div> </p>

Network Marketing, Multi Million Dollar Business or Just a Spam?

A lot of people has bad image when they heard about Network Marketing. Well, we cant blame them. May be they had bad experiences before. Here are some tips for you before you join any network marketing. Hopefully it will help you.
Four things about MLM that we have to know:

1. Research the company first
You can research the company profile and information from the internet. Look for the information about the company as much as you can and ask your friends or people who knows about this network marketing company. Usually the company that is spam only stays no more than 5 years. The company that is not a spam usually belongs to a Better Business Bureau and US Chambers. The more research you do, the better.
2. Lack of Mentoring
Most of the network marketing company do not provide mentor on how to do the business. Basically they just tell you about the company profile and the level of commission that we could attain. Mentor plays a quite significant role in the business especially for people who knows a little or none about network marketing business. From the mentor, new comer can be guided step-by-step on how to do the business, where to do the promotions and how to take profit from all the marketing tools. In this case look for network marketing companies that provide mentor to you so you will be supported along the way.
3. Full support from the team
Team support also plays an important role in the network marketing business. If members support each other then the business more likely will last longer than just running individually. Members can support each other by sharing the techniques that they have to get leads and so on.
4. Consistent and Hard work
Just like doing any other job, taking this network marketing job also requires hard work but of course you do not need to work 8 hours a day seven days a week. You do need at least to work on the job for 2 to 3 hours a day. If you still have a full time job, just consider this network marketing job as overtime. We also have to be consistent in doing this job. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme so we have to be positive and do it consistently
In Summary, if you want to join any network marketing business just keep in mind the things that I mentioned above. Dig a little deeper about the company and the whole process of how to earn the money and do it with consistency. It is not easy but with a team work, mentor and hard work we could be successful. Anybody can add more inputs, so we can help others before they join any network marketing business.

Yochention Saritoh is an internet marketer and a member of Financial Freedom Society and Elite Team International.
If you want to know more about the business and how you can earn money too from the internet, you can go to http://www.EzInternetIncome.com or http://ffsi.EzInternetIncome.com

Yourself! To Win The War Against Spam!

VriesUnfortunately, fighting SPAM has become an ever increasing challenge in every day online life! :(

Even with the passage of the CAN-SPAM legislation which took effect in the United States in January of 2004 (see http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html ), ,this does not seem to have diminished the volume of *spam* at all (as you may also see in the article "CAN-SPAM legislation proving useless against spam" at: http://www.newstarget.com/001412.html ) and appears to have simply "pushed the spammers offshore" :(

I, personally, used to receive over 200 spam messages just overnight while I slept in just one of my email boxes! :(

However, by helping you Arm Yourself with the proper tools and techniques, in this article, we hope to help you Win the War against SPAM!

Although, there are many differing opinions regarding the definition of what is and what is not SPAM, we do not wish to enter into that debate in this article. Rather, we will define SPAM simply herein for the purpose of this article to mean "any unwanted email message".

So, if you didn't ask to receive "an unwanted email message", of whatever kind, then ...
How did these "spammers" get your email address in the first place to sent it to you?

Well, there are many, many ways in which spammers can get "a hold" of your email address :(

Every time you post a message in an open forum wherein your email address is "visible", there are those spammers that go and "farm" these email addresses from these public forums and send spam to them.

Every time you register your email address at a site that does not "promise" not to share it with or sell it to someone else, that site may be selling your email address to a spammer.

If you have your email address explicitely stated in any of your web pages, even just in the HTML and perhaps not "visible" on the page as such, e.g. in a field, there appear to be spammers who go and "farm" email addresses straight out of your web pages' HTML and send spam to them too.

Once one of them has got it they seem to tend to share, sell, etc. your email address with even more spammers and on and on it goes.

So, does that mean you should stop posting messages in public forums, registering at web sites and/or making your email address available through your web sites?

NO! ... Absolutely Not!

Why should we relinquish the battlefield to the *spammers*?
When by Arming Ourselves with the right tools and techniques, we can Win the War against SPAM!

So, how do we Arm Ourselves against SPAM?

As the saying goes ....
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure", right?

So, let's start Arming Ourselves by discussing the ways in which we may prevent spammers from getting a hold of your email message in the first place.

You may wish to limit your posting of messages in open forums wherein your email address is "visible". You can disguise (or "munge") your e-mail address when you post it to newsgroups, chat rooms, bulletin boards, or other public forums For example, you can give your e-mail address as "wh0Am1@example.c0m" by using the number zero instead of the letter "o" and "1" instead of "I". This way, the reader can interpret your address, but the automated programs that spammers use cannot. And you may wish to only register your email address with web sites, etc. whom "promise" not to share it with or sell it to anyone else.

However, again, I "bristle" at the thought of letting the spammers win and in any way curtailing my online activities and/or force me to relinquish any benefit of our wonderful online / virtual world due to their unscrupulous behaviour! ;[

Preventing spammers from "farming" your email address(es) out of the HTML of your web pages is a much easier weapon to weild to prevent unscrupulous spammers from getting a hold of your email address(es) in the first place.

There exist some very nice and easy to use tools that will help you encrypt your email address such that you may include it (encrypted) in the HTML for your web pages, your visitors may still click on your email links to mail to you and spammer won't find it to "farm" for their spam mailing lists! One such email address encrypter that we use regularly and recommend is the HTML E-mail Link Encrypter, which is one of the many webmaster tools and utilities you may get as part of your copy of the Fast Selling Software (see below).

Despite our best efforts at prevention, it is still highly likely that some spammer somewhere will eventually get a hold of your email address and start spamming you, and as we mentioned before, once one spammer has got you on their spam list :( ....

Thus, despite all of our preventative measures, it is unfortunately most likely an inevitability that you will receive some spam sometime.

Therefore, we also need to arm ourselves with the weapons to combat spam whenever it "shows its ugly face", right?

Even though the spammers may have gotten a hold of your email address, there are weapons we may employ such that you don't even ever have to see most of it! :)

Some of these "weapons against spam" employ an intermediate email box wherein any email message sent to your email address from an unknown sender receives an automatic "challenge/response" message requiring them to go to a site, where they must verify themselves as a legitimate email sender, rather than some kind of "spam-bot", e.g. by typing in a "verification password". Then you receive only those messages from verified senders from this intermediate email box. IOHO, one of the best of these type of "challenge/response" intermediate email box systems, which we use, have been pleased with and therefore recommend, is Spam Arrest, for which you may find out more information and try it for yourself for Fr^ee via the information and link in the resource box below.

These type of "challenge/response" intermediate email box systems are great for eliminating spam from "spam-bots" and/or when the sender and/or reply-to email addresses are not "real people". However, there are still some spammers that will "pass the challenge" and then you will have to manually go up and "block" those senders from your seeing any further messages from them.

Similarly, if you own your own domain / web site(s), some web host providers offer spam blocking/ filtering that you may use for your domain. Some of these types of spam blockers / filters also allow you to enter regular expressions to determine all of the senders addresses and/or messages containing a particular "string", matching the regular expression "pattern" entered, to block. These types of spam blocking/ filtering are great to combat spammers who use multiple sender and/or reply to email addresses that change frequently and/or randomly (and probably automatically generated), but from a common domain and/or with a definable pattern. However, these types of spam blockers/ filters often require that you log into your domain / web hosting account and add a filter for each spammer's set of sender addresses and/or matching message text to be blocked.

Therefore, an even better weapon we have found, use and recommend, for "stemming the flow" of spam, is a PC / client based application called MailWasher, which is one of the many very helpful and beneficial tools in Vcoms SystemSuite for which you may find out more information in the resource box below.

MailWasher is great because it allows you to quickly and easily distinguish "friends from foes (spammers)", "bounce" unwanted email messages and "blacklist" the spammers such that you don't have to hear from them again!:) ... and all from your PC! When you "bounce" a spam message the sender of it receives an automatic response indicating that your email address was "not found / invalid". Therefore, rather than receiving verification of a valid email address, as from a challenge/response system or removal request, the spammer is more likely to believe your email address is invalid and remove you from their spam list! ;) When you "blacklist" a spammer in MailWasher, it automatically "tags" all of their messages to be automatically "bounced" and then deleted. Further, MailWasher allows you to combat spam on any number of your email addresses, again all from one place / application.

We have effectively employed all of these weapons against spam and have successfully reduced the previous torrent (of over 200 spam messages per night in one of my mailboxes) to a mere tickle and are definitely on the way to Winning the War against SPAM! :)

We hope this all helps you all Win the War against SPAM! :)

- Michael S. DeVries

Even with the passage of the CAN-SPAM legislation which took effect in the United States in January of 2004 (see http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html ), ,this does not seem to have diminished the volume of *spam* at all (as you may also see in the article "CAN-SPAM legislation proving useless against spam" at: http://www.newstarget.com/001412.html ) and appears to have simply "pushed the spammers offshore" :(

I, personally, used to receive over 200 spam messages just overnight while I slept in just one of my email boxes! :(

However, by helping you Arm Yourself with the proper tools and techniques, in this article, we hope to help you Win the War against SPAM!

Although, there are many differing opinions regarding the definition of what is and what is not SPAM, we do not wish to enter into that debate in this article. Rather, we will define SPAM simply herein for the purpose of this article to mean "any unwanted email message".

So, if you didn't ask to receive "an unwanted email message", of whatever kind, then ...
How did these "spammers" get your email address in the first place to sent it to you?

Well, there are many, many ways in which spammers can get "a hold" of your email address :(

Every time you post a message in an open forum wherein your email address is "visible", there are those spammers that go and "farm" these email addresses from these public forums and send spam to them.

Every time you register your email address at a site that does not "promise" not to share it with or sell it to someone else, that site may be selling your email address to a spammer.

If you have your email address explicitely stated in any of your web pages, even just in the HTML and perhaps not "visible" on the page as such, e.g. in a field, there appear to be spammers who go and "farm" email addresses straight out of your web pages' HTML and send spam to them too.

Once one of them has got it they seem to tend to share, sell, etc. your email address with even more spammers and on and on it goes.

So, does that mean you should stop posting messages in public forums, registering at web sites and/or making your email address available through your web sites?

NO! ... Absolutely Not!

Why should we relinquish the battlefield to the *spammers*?
When by Arming Ourselves with the right tools and techniques, we can Win the War against SPAM!

So, how do we Arm Ourselves against SPAM?

As the saying goes ....
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure", right?

So, let's start Arming Ourselves by discussing the ways in which we may prevent spammers from getting a hold of your email message in the first place.

You may wish to limit your posting of messages in open forums wherein your email address is "visible". You can disguise (or "munge") your e-mail address when you post it to newsgroups, chat rooms, bulletin boards, or other public forums For example, you can give your e-mail address as "wh0Am1@example.c0m" by using the number zero instead of the letter "o" and "1" instead of "I". This way, the reader can interpret your address, but the automated programs that spammers use cannot. And you may wish to only register your email address with web sites, etc. whom "promise" not to share it with or sell it to anyone else.

However, again, I "bristle" at the thought of letting the spammers win and in any way curtailing my online activities and/or force me to relinquish any benefit of our wonderful online / virtual world due to their unscrupulous behaviour! ;[

Preventing spammers from "farming" your email address(es) out of the HTML of your web pages is a much easier weapon to weild to prevent unscrupulous spammers from getting a hold of your email address(es) in the first place.

There exist some very nice and easy to use tools that will help you encrypt your email address such that you may include it (encrypted) in the HTML for your web pages, your visitors may still click on your email links to mail to you and spammer won't find it to "farm" for their spam mailing lists! One such email address encrypter that we use regularly and recommend is the HTML E-mail Link Encrypter, which is one of the many webmaster tools and utilities you may get as part of your copy of the Fast Selling Software (see below).

Despite our best efforts at prevention, it is still highly likely that some spammer somewhere will eventually get a hold of your email address and start spamming you, and as we mentioned before, once one spammer has got you on their spam list :( ....

Thus, despite all of our preventative measures, it is unfortunately most likely an inevitability that you will receive some spam sometime.

Therefore, we also need to arm ourselves with the weapons to combat spam whenever it "shows its ugly face", right?

Even though the spammers may have gotten a hold of your email address, there are weapons we may employ such that you don't even ever have to see most of it! :)

Some of these "weapons against spam" employ an intermediate email box wherein any email message sent to your email address from an unknown sender receives an automatic "challenge/response" message requiring them to go to a site, where they must verify themselves as a legitimate email sender, rather than some kind of "spam-bot", e.g. by typing in a "verification password". Then you receive only those messages from verified senders from this intermediate email box. IOHO, one of the best of these type of "challenge/response" intermediate email box systems, which we use, have been pleased with and therefore recommend, is Spam Arrest, for which you may find out more information and try it for yourself for Fr^ee via the information and link in the resource box below.

These type of "challenge/response" intermediate email box systems are great for eliminating spam from "spam-bots" and/or when the sender and/or reply-to email addresses are not "real people". However, there are still some spammers that will "pass the challenge" and then you will have to manually go up and "block" those senders from your seeing any further messages from them.

Similarly, if you own your own domain / web site(s), some web host providers offer spam blocking/ filtering that you may use for your domain. Some of these types of spam blockers / filters also allow you to enter regular expressions to determine all of the senders addresses and/or messages containing a particular "string", matching the regular expression "pattern" entered, to block. These types of spam blocking/ filtering are great to combat spammers who use multiple sender and/or reply to email addresses that change frequently and/or randomly (and probably automatically generated), but from a common domain and/or with a definable pattern. However, these types of spam blockers/ filters often require that you log into your domain / web hosting account and add a filter for each spammer's set of sender addresses and/or matching message text to be blocked.

Therefore, an even better weapon we have found, use and recommend, for "stemming the flow" of spam, is a PC / client based application called MailWasher, which is one of the many very helpful and beneficial tools in Vcoms SystemSuite for which you may find out more information in the resource box below.

MailWasher is great because it allows you to quickly and easily distinguish "friends from foes (spammers)", "bounce" unwanted email messages and "blacklist" the spammers such that you don't have to hear from them again!:) ... and all from your PC! When you "bounce" a spam message the sender of it receives an automatic response indicating that your email address was "not found / invalid". Therefore, rather than receiving verification of a valid email address, as from a challenge/response system or removal request, the spammer is more likely to believe your email address is invalid and remove you from their spam list! ;) When you "blacklist" a spammer in MailWasher, it automatically "tags" all of their messages to be automatically "bounced" and then deleted. Further, MailWasher allows you to combat spam on any number of your email addresses, again all from one place / application.

We have effectively employed all of these weapons against spam and have successfully reduced the previous torrent (of over 200 spam messages per night in one of my mailboxes) to a mere tickle and are definitely on the way to Winning the War against SPAM! :)

We hope this all helps you all Win the War against SPAM! :)

- Michael S. DeVries

Michael S. DeVries is the Moderator of The Virtual Consulting Discussion List (http://www.TheVCF.com/vcdl.phtml) and Principal of The Virtual Consulting Firm (http://www.TheVCF.com).
You too can Arm Yourself with these weapons and Win the War against SPAM!, at: http://www.thevcf.com/vccenter.phtml#SPAM

Spam: Bozo Filters

A bozo filter is a feature of email and newsgroups clients to
allow you to automatically delete messages which you do not want
to receive. This is typically used to eliminate flame spam
messages so you don't have to see them.

For example, I am subscribed to a number of topics on Yahoo
Egroups. In general these groups have pleasant conversations
among people who stay on topic and don't flame. There are two
individuals, however, who are abusive and make no substantial
contributions and see the need to post flames and sarcastic
remarks regularly. I could just ignore (and delete) these
messages myself, or I could (and have) set up a bozo filter in
Outlook which automatically deletes all messages from their email
address. This ensures that I don't need to read the messages from
these people except as part of a reply to another message (rare).

Using the filters supplied with virtually all modern email and
newsgroup clients, you can seriously cut down on spam and other
unwanted messages. However, to be effective, you have to maintain
your filters on a regular basis. Here's what I do: whenever I
receive an email which is undesirable, I scan it quickly to
identify something which would identify it. This might be the
FROM address, the SUBJECT (some or all of it) or various phrases
within the message body. If the FROM address is strange (which it
often is in spam messages), then it's better to key off the
subject or text body. These identifiers are then added to my
filters. In other words, I tell the email client "if you see this
phrase in the message body, then please automatically delete the
message.

Note that you must be careful that the phrases are specific to
the type of message you want to delete. Otherwise, you will wind
up deleting messages which you actually want to receive. For
example, let's say a common phrase is "sex movies for sale". You
should add the whole phrase to your filter, not a short word like
"sale" which could unintentionally delete messages about other
things.

Note that your filter should move the messages to the trash, and
you should always take a quick scan of the messages in your email
trash can before deleting. This will help prevent you from
accidentally deleting a valid message. Filters are not perfect.

Some good phrases to add to your bozo filters are:

Click here to be removed.
bulk e-mail
bulk e mail
MLM
multilevel
I just found your address by searching through
adult
adults only
If you are under 21
This is a one-time mailing
This is not a spam
million dollars
senate.gov
Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S. 1618
Bill 1618 Title III
Since your email address was listed on a related Web site
Claim your prize

Once you've spent some time creating a few bozo filters, you
will begin to realize the power at your fingertips. Using the
filtering components of products such as Outlook and Outlook
express, you can automatically file emails in specific folders,
forward them without your intervention and of course delete spam.
Have fun and use these to help improve your productivity.
allow you to automatically delete messages which you do not want
to receive. This is typically used to eliminate flame spam
messages so you don't have to see them.

For example, I am subscribed to a number of topics on Yahoo
Egroups. In general these groups have pleasant conversations
among people who stay on topic and don't flame. There are two
individuals, however, who are abusive and make no substantial
contributions and see the need to post flames and sarcastic
remarks regularly. I could just ignore (and delete) these
messages myself, or I could (and have) set up a bozo filter in
Outlook which automatically deletes all messages from their email
address. This ensures that I don't need to read the messages from
these people except as part of a reply to another message (rare).

Using the filters supplied with virtually all modern email and
newsgroup clients, you can seriously cut down on spam and other
unwanted messages. However, to be effective, you have to maintain
your filters on a regular basis. Here's what I do: whenever I
receive an email which is undesirable, I scan it quickly to
identify something which would identify it. This might be the
FROM address, the SUBJECT (some or all of it) or various phrases
within the message body. If the FROM address is strange (which it
often is in spam messages), then it's better to key off the
subject or text body. These identifiers are then added to my
filters. In other words, I tell the email client "if you see this
phrase in the message body, then please automatically delete the
message.

Note that you must be careful that the phrases are specific to
the type of message you want to delete. Otherwise, you will wind
up deleting messages which you actually want to receive. For
example, let's say a common phrase is "sex movies for sale". You
should add the whole phrase to your filter, not a short word like
"sale" which could unintentionally delete messages about other
things.

Note that your filter should move the messages to the trash, and
you should always take a quick scan of the messages in your email
trash can before deleting. This will help prevent you from
accidentally deleting a valid message. Filters are not perfect.

Some good phrases to add to your bozo filters are:

Click here to be removed.
bulk e-mail
bulk e mail
MLM
multilevel
I just found your address by searching through
adult
adults only
If you are under 21
This is a one-time mailing
This is not a spam
million dollars
senate.gov
Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S. 1618
Bill 1618 Title III
Since your email address was listed on a related Web site
Claim your prize

Once you've spent some time creating a few bozo filters, you
will begin to realize the power at your fingertips. Using the
filtering components of products such as Outlook and Outlook
express, you can automatically file emails in specific folders,
forward them without your intervention and of course delete spam.
Have fun and use these to help improve your productivity.

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets
at http://www.internet-tips.net - Visit our website any time to
read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your
internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.

 

Spam: Bozo Filters

A bozo filter is a feature of email and newsgroups clients to
allow you to automatically delete messages which you do not want
to receive. This is typically used to eliminate flame spam
messages so you don't have to see them.

For example, I am subscribed to a number of topics on Yahoo
Egroups. In general these groups have pleasant conversations
among people who stay on topic and don't flame. There are two
individuals, however, who are abusive and make no substantial
contributions and see the need to post flames and sarcastic
remarks regularly. I could just ignore (and delete) these
messages myself, or I could (and have) set up a bozo filter in
Outlook which automatically deletes all messages from their email
address. This ensures that I don't need to read the messages from
these people except as part of a reply to another message (rare).

Using the filters supplied with virtually all modern email and
newsgroup clients, you can seriously cut down on spam and other
unwanted messages. However, to be effective, you have to maintain
your filters on a regular basis. Here's what I do: whenever I
receive an email which is undesirable, I scan it quickly to
identify something which would identify it. This might be the
FROM address, the SUBJECT (some or all of it) or various phrases
within the message body. If the FROM address is strange (which it
often is in spam messages), then it's better to key off the
subject or text body. These identifiers are then added to my
filters. In other words, I tell the email client "if you see this
phrase in the message body, then please automatically delete the
message.

Note that you must be careful that the phrases are specific to
the type of message you want to delete. Otherwise, you will wind
up deleting messages which you actually want to receive. For
example, let's say a common phrase is "sex movies for sale". You
should add the whole phrase to your filter, not a short word like
"sale" which could unintentionally delete messages about other
things.

Note that your filter should move the messages to the trash, and
you should always take a quick scan of the messages in your email
trash can before deleting. This will help prevent you from
accidentally deleting a valid message. Filters are not perfect.

Some good phrases to add to your bozo filters are:

Click here to be removed.
bulk e-mail
bulk e mail
MLM
multilevel
I just found your address by searching through
adult
adults only
If you are under 21
This is a one-time mailing
This is not a spam
million dollars
senate.gov
Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S. 1618
Bill 1618 Title III
Since your email address was listed on a related Web site
Claim your prize

Once you've spent some time creating a few bozo filters, you
will begin to realize the power at your fingertips. Using the
filtering components of products such as Outlook and Outlook
express, you can automatically file emails in specific folders,
forward them without your intervention and of course delete spam.
Have fun and use these to help improve your productivity.
allow you to automatically delete messages which you do not want
to receive. This is typically used to eliminate flame spam
messages so you don't have to see them.

For example, I am subscribed to a number of topics on Yahoo
Egroups. In general these groups have pleasant conversations
among people who stay on topic and don't flame. There are two
individuals, however, who are abusive and make no substantial
contributions and see the need to post flames and sarcastic
remarks regularly. I could just ignore (and delete) these
messages myself, or I could (and have) set up a bozo filter in
Outlook which automatically deletes all messages from their email
address. This ensures that I don't need to read the messages from
these people except as part of a reply to another message (rare).

Using the filters supplied with virtually all modern email and
newsgroup clients, you can seriously cut down on spam and other
unwanted messages. However, to be effective, you have to maintain
your filters on a regular basis. Here's what I do: whenever I
receive an email which is undesirable, I scan it quickly to
identify something which would identify it. This might be the
FROM address, the SUBJECT (some or all of it) or various phrases
within the message body. If the FROM address is strange (which it
often is in spam messages), then it's better to key off the
subject or text body. These identifiers are then added to my
filters. In other words, I tell the email client "if you see this
phrase in the message body, then please automatically delete the
message.

Note that you must be careful that the phrases are specific to
the type of message you want to delete. Otherwise, you will wind
up deleting messages which you actually want to receive. For
example, let's say a common phrase is "sex movies for sale". You
should add the whole phrase to your filter, not a short word like
"sale" which could unintentionally delete messages about other
things.

Note that your filter should move the messages to the trash, and
you should always take a quick scan of the messages in your email
trash can before deleting. This will help prevent you from
accidentally deleting a valid message. Filters are not perfect.

Some good phrases to add to your bozo filters are:

Click here to be removed.
bulk e-mail
bulk e mail
MLM
multilevel
I just found your address by searching through
adult
adults only
If you are under 21
This is a one-time mailing
This is not a spam
million dollars
senate.gov
Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S. 1618
Bill 1618 Title III
Since your email address was listed on a related Web site
Claim your prize

Once you've spent some time creating a few bozo filters, you
will begin to realize the power at your fingertips. Using the
filtering components of products such as Outlook and Outlook
express, you can automatically file emails in specific folders,
forward them without your intervention and of course delete spam.
Have fun and use these to help improve your productivity.

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets
at http://www.internet-tips.net - Visit our website any time to
read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your
internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.

 

Get Your Emails Organized, Part II : Fight Spam !

In the last few years the extent of Spam (unsolicited email) has
multiplied a hundred times. Have you taken measures to reduce
spam to a minimum ? If not, I will give you some hints how you
can fight this new evil of the information age .

Those annoying violators of your privacy are not worth your
valuable time...

Pseudo Excuses Of Spammers

Those guys hide their shameless behaviour after pseudo excuses
like "Thank you for your request" or "Re : More information" ,
"Thank you very much for your offer", "I saw your ad", "I've just
visited your website" etc. - so people could think "Mmmmmmh,
I'm not sure if I have NOT requested that stuff or perhaps he has
a real request" ; it could be a legal email, though...

Following the rules outlined in this article, you'll be able to free
more of your time for doing business again and not getting over-
whelmed by a flood of emails.

Use A Different Email Address For All Your Marketing Needs...

I'm almost certain that you will have more than just one email
address for your email needs . Or rather not ? Then you are
making a big mistake.....

Do you already have your own domain ? With your own website,
you will have included a lot of email POP-accounts which are just
perfect to fit your desire to be protected against spam . If you
don't have your own domain, you should order one ASAP or you
are not serious about marketing on the Internet....

You should at least set up the following e-mail accounts :

1.) E-mail for subscriptions to newsletters ONLY
-e.g. : ezines@domainname.com

2.) E-mail for private purposes (friends, relatives, colleagues)
-e.g. : firstname@yahoo.com , firstname@hotmail.com

3.) E-mail for public ads (public e-mail address )
- e.g. : ads1@domainname.com ---> This Is The Email
Address Where SPAM Goes To

4.) E-mail for outgoing ad messages (e.g. if you're the owner of
an FFA-page and you send confirmation e-mails; this would
be the "sender"-address) ------> This is the email address
where you have to deal with autoresponders/undeliverables/
and also SPAM

5.) E-mail for personal marketing contacts only (e.g. contact with
other newsletter publishers/JV-partners/affiliates etc. )
- e.g. : firstname@domainname.com

And additionally, if you publish an ezine, you'll need these :

6.) E-mail for article submissions
-e.g.: articles@domainname.com

7.) E-mail for advertisement info
-e.g.: ads@domainname.com or adinfo@domainname.com

Then you create new inboxes for each of these new email
accounts . The next step is to set up rules for filtering the
incoming emails into the right folders ( described in part I of
"Get your emails organized" ) .

With this very basic filtering system, you can categorize your in-
coming emails at a glance. You will also be able to delete all
spam mails you received with two clicks of your mouse .

The 3 Golden Rules Of Spam Reduction :

NEVER EVER use your private/subscription addresses/marke-
ting contacts email addresses for public purposes. Never leave
these addresses on websites and don't use them in your email
correspondences (except for validation purposes from ezines
you are subscribed to, e.g. to get your free ads) !

NEVER EVER post to FFA-pages (by the way, you won't get
any results from using them as these pages are hardly ever seen
by a human ....- Owning an FFA-page is something different) !

NEVER EVER reply to spammers (this is just a hint for them
that the email address is VALID !) !

And last but not least : I've come across a great resource that
fights spam with their own methods at :

http://www.monkeys.com/wpoison/

This is a cgi-script that fights spam by creating dynamic email-
addresses . The harvesting software collects that many email
addresses that a lot of them are just rubbish for the owner who
uses those methods .

Although you can reduce the amount of spam by adopting the
rules and habits I mentioned in this article, I am quite sure that
spammers will survive because not everybody knows how to
prevent or reduce spam and those intruders will find new
victims....
multiplied a hundred times. Have you taken measures to reduce
spam to a minimum ? If not, I will give you some hints how you
can fight this new evil of the information age .

Those annoying violators of your privacy are not worth your
valuable time...

Pseudo Excuses Of Spammers

Those guys hide their shameless behaviour after pseudo excuses
like "Thank you for your request" or "Re : More information" ,
"Thank you very much for your offer", "I saw your ad", "I've just
visited your website" etc. - so people could think "Mmmmmmh,
I'm not sure if I have NOT requested that stuff or perhaps he has
a real request" ; it could be a legal email, though...

Following the rules outlined in this article, you'll be able to free
more of your time for doing business again and not getting over-
whelmed by a flood of emails.

Use A Different Email Address For All Your Marketing Needs...

I'm almost certain that you will have more than just one email
address for your email needs . Or rather not ? Then you are
making a big mistake.....

Do you already have your own domain ? With your own website,
you will have included a lot of email POP-accounts which are just
perfect to fit your desire to be protected against spam . If you
don't have your own domain, you should order one ASAP or you
are not serious about marketing on the Internet....

You should at least set up the following e-mail accounts :

1.) E-mail for subscriptions to newsletters ONLY
-e.g. : ezines@domainname.com

2.) E-mail for private purposes (friends, relatives, colleagues)
-e.g. : firstname@yahoo.com , firstname@hotmail.com

3.) E-mail for public ads (public e-mail address )
- e.g. : ads1@domainname.com ---> This Is The Email
Address Where SPAM Goes To

4.) E-mail for outgoing ad messages (e.g. if you're the owner of
an FFA-page and you send confirmation e-mails; this would
be the "sender"-address) ------> This is the email address
where you have to deal with autoresponders/undeliverables/
and also SPAM

5.) E-mail for personal marketing contacts only (e.g. contact with
other newsletter publishers/JV-partners/affiliates etc. )
- e.g. : firstname@domainname.com

And additionally, if you publish an ezine, you'll need these :

6.) E-mail for article submissions
-e.g.: articles@domainname.com

7.) E-mail for advertisement info
-e.g.: ads@domainname.com or adinfo@domainname.com

Then you create new inboxes for each of these new email
accounts . The next step is to set up rules for filtering the
incoming emails into the right folders ( described in part I of
"Get your emails organized" ) .

With this very basic filtering system, you can categorize your in-
coming emails at a glance. You will also be able to delete all
spam mails you received with two clicks of your mouse .

The 3 Golden Rules Of Spam Reduction :

NEVER EVER use your private/subscription addresses/marke-
ting contacts email addresses for public purposes. Never leave
these addresses on websites and don't use them in your email
correspondences (except for validation purposes from ezines
you are subscribed to, e.g. to get your free ads) !

NEVER EVER post to FFA-pages (by the way, you won't get
any results from using them as these pages are hardly ever seen
by a human ....- Owning an FFA-page is something different) !

NEVER EVER reply to spammers (this is just a hint for them
that the email address is VALID !) !

And last but not least : I've come across a great resource that
fights spam with their own methods at :

http://www.monkeys.com/wpoison/

This is a cgi-script that fights spam by creating dynamic email-
addresses . The harvesting software collects that many email
addresses that a lot of them are just rubbish for the owner who
uses those methods .

Although you can reduce the amount of spam by adopting the
rules and habits I mentioned in this article, I am quite sure that
spammers will survive because not everybody knows how to
prevent or reduce spam and those intruders will find new
victims....

Article by Detlev Reimer. Feel free to use the article with these
bylines included. Detlev has just finished creating his first product,
a database program for Internet marketers which will help you to save
and organize e.g. your advertising, customer and contact data. For
further details, please visit : http://www.promobuddy.com/ . Sign up
for his newsletter at http://www.internetmarketing-success.com/ .

How Can I Stop Getting Spam?Sean Proske

A Tutorial for Webmasters
By Sean Proske
mailto:sproske@thewebhostcompany.com

Are you getting too much spam? We all are, but if
you're a webmaster the word spam takes on a whole
new meaning.

It's not uncommon for the luckiest of email
users to receive a dozen or so spam messages each
day, while those of us who aren't so fortunate
receive hundreds.

The casual home user tends to be more fortunate,
so this article is devoted to those of us with one
or more website because webmasters are getting hit
by spam ... and hit hard.

The reason ... a website doesn't do you much
good if you don't give potential customers a way
to contact you, and that normally means posting an
email address on your website, where it is
vulnerable to email address harvesting tools used
by spammers. Domain registration records are also
a common source used by spammers.

In order to conduct business online you now need
to sift through the endless barrage of offers for
herbal viagra, pornography, pyramid schemes, and
so on.

With such a large volume of spam to contend with,
it's likely you've lost sales due to missing
important emails that simply floated away in this
sea of spam. And there's no way to really
calculate the cost of that lost business. If
you've missed email then how can you ever know how
much business you've lost?

If you want to solve the problem, you need to be
proactive because the sad reality is that if you
do nothing, it will only get worse until finally
it reaches the point where your email account has
become totally and completely unmanageable.
Fortunately there are a few options available to
you.

--------------------------------------------------
Securing Your Domain Registration Against Spammers
--------------------------------------------------

First let's address the whois database, which is a
publicly accessible database in which your domain
registration record is listed ... and that
includes your email address. It's not uncommon
now for people to be spammed at a brand new email
address within hours of registering a new domain.

Go Daddy http://www.godaddy.com is a domain
registrar that now offers private domain
registrations. At the time of writing this
article, they are the only registrar who currently
offers this service. Hopefully in time, other
registrars will pick up on this idea and offer the
service too.

With a private domain registration, which costs
only a few dollars more than a regular
registration, your contact information including
your email address will not be publicly accessible
in the whois database.

That's guaranteed to cut down on spam quite
significantly as this very important source of
addresses that spammers use, will no longer
provide your address to them.

If you don't wish to obtain a private domain
registration, then there is another option that
will be equally effective. Set up a new email
address that you use only for the purpose of
providing registration information for your domain
name. You can easily scan email sent to that
address for messages from your registrar, and
delete the rest without having to read it.

--------------------------------------------------
Securing Your Website Against Spammers
--------------------------------------------------

The other major source, and by far the biggest
source of email addresses for spammers is of
course the mailto links on your own website.
Email address harvesting or extraction software as
it's known is cheap, easy to use, and readily
available ... and it's very effective. That
means there are a lot of spammers out there with
easy access to your email address.

Chances are hundreds or even thousands of spammers
using such software have already harvested your
address. And what can you do about this? You
need to provide a way for your customers to reach
you by email, or you'll lose business. There are
steps you can take to prevent your email address
from being harvested and used by spammers though,
while still providing legitimate visitors to your
site with a way to email you.

One solution is to make all the mailto links on
your site point to a form instead, which will
still provide a means for people to send you
email. Provided you use a CGI script that
doesn't require the address to be embedded
within the form itself, you can shield your
address from email address extractors.

If you don't want to require people to fill out
a form to email you from your website, then you
can get a little more creative. It is possible to
put a mailto link on your site that when clicked
will still launch the sender's email program,
and start a new message with your address in the
To field ... but without having to embed your
email address in the mailto link where spam
software can snatch it. Click below to see an
example of how it works.

http:/ hewebhostcompany.com/cgi-local/email.cgi

It looks like a normal URL, and there's clearly no
email address anywhere in the link, but when
clicked, instead of loading a web page in your
browser as you may have expected, your email
program opens up.

How's that possible you might ask? Simple. A
little magic with CGI using Perl or PHP will do
the trick. A free copy of a script that does this
is bundled with Postmaster Pro, available at
http://www.postmasterpro.com which is discussed
below.

--------------------------------------------------
What About Spammers Who Already Have My Address?
--------------------------------------------------

So far we've discussed a few fairly simple
techniques designed to prevent spammers from
obtaining your email address in the first place.
But, how do you deal with the spam you're
already getting? Your address is already out
there. The solution is to either block or filter.

For either, you'll need software. For blocking, I
recommend Postmaster Pro. If you prefer to filter
then Spam Assassin is highly recommended. Both
run on the server, so there is no need to download
spam before filtering it out. That's a huge time
saver if you're not yet on a high-speed
connection. It also makes it a bit less likely
you'll end up downloading a virus since email from
untrusted senders, i.e. spammers will be
significantly reduced.

------------------------------------------------
Spam Blocking Software
------------------------------------------------

Postmaster Pro which is available at
http://www.postmasterpro.com takes a novel
approach to blocking spam. It only allows email
to be delivered after people who've sent you
email have been placed on an approved sender list.
But the interesting thing is that people who send
you email can put themselves on your approved
list. This is done simply by clicking a link in
an email that automatically gets sent to them the
first time they send email to you, which is
perfect for those of us who don't know in
advance whom we should put on the approved list,
i.e. if you're running a business online. It
also makes building and maintaining such a list
very simple.

Given the fact that spammers normally use invalid
return addresses, and those who do use valid
return addresses seldom read email that's sent
there, let alone respond to it (they receive
thousands of failed delivery notifications,
complaints, remove requests, and autoresponder
messages every time they do a mailing) ... it's
a very effective technique with no chance of
blocking legitimate email, as is the case with
filtering.

--------------------------------------------------
Spam Filtering Software
--------------------------------------------------

For those who would prefer to filter ... Spam
Assassin is perhaps the best option. It is
available at http://www.spamassassin.org. Once
you have Spam Assassin installed, it will provide
you with very powerful and flexible filtering
tools. Spam Assassin is a mature product, having
been around for quite some time. If you're
going to filter, Spam Assassin is about as good as
it gets.

As with any filter though, you do run the risk of
missing legitimate email from time to time. There
really isn't a good way to tell how often this is
happening unless you want to read all the email
that gets filtered out, which negates the whole
point of filtering. If you set your filters
permissively enough though, you should be
reasonably safe. For the first month or so after
installing any filter, you should continue to read
every single email in order to make sure it isn't
set too restrictively to allow legitimate email
through.

By using the techniques mentioned in this article,
you can take back your mailbox, and dramatically
reduce, if not eliminate spam.

--------------------------------------------------
Sean Proske is the CEO and founding partner of
thewebhostcompany.com which has provided reliable
and affordable hosting since 1996.
http://www.thewebhostcompany.com
mailto:info@thewebhostcompany.com
--------------------------------------------------
2003 by Sean Proske

You have permission to publish this article
electronically or in print, in your Newsletter, on
your website, or in your E-Book, as long as the
author's Resource Box is included with the
article.
A Tutorial for Webmasters
By Sean Proske
mailto:sproske@thewebhostcompany.com

Are you getting too much spam? We all are, but if
you're a webmaster the word spam takes on a whole
new meaning.

It's not uncommon for the luckiest of email
users to receive a dozen or so spam messages each
day, while those of us who aren't so fortunate
receive hundreds.

The casual home user tends to be more fortunate,
so this article is devoted to those of us with one
or more website because webmasters are getting hit
by spam ... and hit hard.

The reason ... a website doesn't do you much
good if you don't give potential customers a way
to contact you, and that normally means posting an
email address on your website, where it is
vulnerable to email address harvesting tools used
by spammers. Domain registration records are also
a common source used by spammers.

In order to conduct business online you now need
to sift through the endless barrage of offers for
herbal viagra, pornography, pyramid schemes, and
so on.

With such a large volume of spam to contend with,
it's likely you've lost sales due to missing
important emails that simply floated away in this
sea of spam. And there's no way to really
calculate the cost of that lost business. If
you've missed email then how can you ever know how
much business you've lost?

If you want to solve the problem, you need to be
proactive because the sad reality is that if you
do nothing, it will only get worse until finally
it reaches the point where your email account has
become totally and completely unmanageable.
Fortunately there are a few options available to
you.

--------------------------------------------------
Securing Your Domain Registration Against Spammers
--------------------------------------------------

First let's address the whois database, which is a
publicly accessible database in which your domain
registration record is listed ... and that
includes your email address. It's not uncommon
now for people to be spammed at a brand new email
address within hours of registering a new domain.

Go Daddy http://www.godaddy.com is a domain
registrar that now offers private domain
registrations. At the time of writing this
article, they are the only registrar who currently
offers this service. Hopefully in time, other
registrars will pick up on this idea and offer the
service too.

With a private domain registration, which costs
only a few dollars more than a regular
registration, your contact information including
your email address will not be publicly accessible
in the whois database.

That's guaranteed to cut down on spam quite
significantly as this very important source of
addresses that spammers use, will no longer
provide your address to them.

If you don't wish to obtain a private domain
registration, then there is another option that
will be equally effective. Set up a new email
address that you use only for the purpose of
providing registration information for your domain
name. You can easily scan email sent to that
address for messages from your registrar, and
delete the rest without having to read it.

--------------------------------------------------
Securing Your Website Against Spammers
--------------------------------------------------

The other major source, and by far the biggest
source of email addresses for spammers is of
course the mailto links on your own website.
Email address harvesting or extraction software as
it's known is cheap, easy to use, and readily
available ... and it's very effective. That
means there are a lot of spammers out there with
easy access to your email address.

Chances are hundreds or even thousands of spammers
using such software have already harvested your
address. And what can you do about this? You
need to provide a way for your customers to reach
you by email, or you'll lose business. There are
steps you can take to prevent your email address
from being harvested and used by spammers though,
while still providing legitimate visitors to your
site with a way to email you.

One solution is to make all the mailto links on
your site point to a form instead, which will
still provide a means for people to send you
email. Provided you use a CGI script that
doesn't require the address to be embedded
within the form itself, you can shield your
address from email address extractors.

If you don't want to require people to fill out
a form to email you from your website, then you
can get a little more creative. It is possible to
put a mailto link on your site that when clicked
will still launch the sender's email program,
and start a new message with your address in the
To field ... but without having to embed your
email address in the mailto link where spam
software can snatch it. Click below to see an
example of how it works.

http:/ hewebhostcompany.com/cgi-local/email.cgi

It looks like a normal URL, and there's clearly no
email address anywhere in the link, but when
clicked, instead of loading a web page in your
browser as you may have expected, your email
program opens up.

How's that possible you might ask? Simple. A
little magic with CGI using Perl or PHP will do
the trick. A free copy of a script that does this
is bundled with Postmaster Pro, available at
http://www.postmasterpro.com which is discussed
below.

--------------------------------------------------
What About Spammers Who Already Have My Address?
--------------------------------------------------

So far we've discussed a few fairly simple
techniques designed to prevent spammers from
obtaining your email address in the first place.
But, how do you deal with the spam you're
already getting? Your address is already out
there. The solution is to either block or filter.

For either, you'll need software. For blocking, I
recommend Postmaster Pro. If you prefer to filter
then Spam Assassin is highly recommended. Both
run on the server, so there is no need to download
spam before filtering it out. That's a huge time
saver if you're not yet on a high-speed
connection. It also makes it a bit less likely
you'll end up downloading a virus since email from
untrusted senders, i.e. spammers will be
significantly reduced.

------------------------------------------------
Spam Blocking Software
------------------------------------------------

Postmaster Pro which is available at
http://www.postmasterpro.com takes a novel
approach to blocking spam. It only allows email
to be delivered after people who've sent you
email have been placed on an approved sender list.
But the interesting thing is that people who send
you email can put themselves on your approved
list. This is done simply by clicking a link in
an email that automatically gets sent to them the
first time they send email to you, which is
perfect for those of us who don't know in
advance whom we should put on the approved list,
i.e. if you're running a business online. It
also makes building and maintaining such a list
very simple.

Given the fact that spammers normally use invalid
return addresses, and those who do use valid
return addresses seldom read email that's sent
there, let alone respond to it (they receive
thousands of failed delivery notifications,
complaints, remove requests, and autoresponder
messages every time they do a mailing) ... it's
a very effective technique with no chance of
blocking legitimate email, as is the case with
filtering.

--------------------------------------------------
Spam Filtering Software
--------------------------------------------------

For those who would prefer to filter ... Spam
Assassin is perhaps the best option. It is
available at http://www.spamassassin.org. Once
you have Spam Assassin installed, it will provide
you with very powerful and flexible filtering
tools. Spam Assassin is a mature product, having
been around for quite some time. If you're
going to filter, Spam Assassin is about as good as
it gets.

As with any filter though, you do run the risk of
missing legitimate email from time to time. There
really isn't a good way to tell how often this is
happening unless you want to read all the email
that gets filtered out, which negates the whole
point of filtering. If you set your filters
permissively enough though, you should be
reasonably safe. For the first month or so after
installing any filter, you should continue to read
every single email in order to make sure it isn't
set too restrictively to allow legitimate email
through.

By using the techniques mentioned in this article,
you can take back your mailbox, and dramatically
reduce, if not eliminate spam.

--------------------------------------------------
Sean Proske is the CEO and founding partner of
thewebhostcompany.com which has provided reliable
and affordable hosting since 1996.
http://www.thewebhostcompany.com
mailto:info@thewebhostcompany.com
--------------------------------------------------
2003 by Sean Proske

You have permission to publish this article
electronically or in print, in your Newsletter, on
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author's Resource Box is included with the
article.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sean Proske is the CEO and founding partner of
thewebhostcompany.com which has provided reliable
and affordable hosting since 1996.
http://www.thewebhostcompany.com
mailto:info@thewebhostcompany.com