Spam Control - The Internet Without It?

Every single day 30,000,000 emails are sent around the world. 50% of those emails are spam. Blue chip companies and even Governments are taking drastic measures in spam control. The most recent evidence of this is the Canspam Act which was passed by the US Senate early in 2004.

If you look at what most people used the Internet for you'll find the vast majority of online activity is sending and receiving email. Email has become the lifeblood of modern society. An interesting social experiment would be to see what happens to a group of young professional people who suddenly have all means of electronic communication taken away from them. Email has become as much a part of our lives as the electric lightbulb, air transport and mobile phones.

What happens if we don't implement spam control globally? What would happen if all the mail server spam filters and regulations controlling spam were suddenly abolishesd? Chaos online! The online world would grind to a screeching halt as email servers become overloaded with the flood of spam. Global bandwidth would be consumed by as each spammer sends out hundreds of millions of junk emails per day.

Without spam control businesses would be crippled. Critical emails would be lost amongst a deluge of porn, viagra and breast enlargement type emails.

Without spam control home use of email and the Internet in general would suffer from massive delays in sending and receiving of email, a 100x increase in the amount of spam email received. Internet connection speeds would be adversely affected with ISPs struggling to keep their servers online while their bandwidth is being choked by spam.

IT analysts estimate that by 2006 the average internet user can expect to receive at least 1,500 pieces of spam per month. This is a conversative estimate. Agressive action is needed to stem the flood of spam. ISPs supporting spam must have their assests seized. Spammers must be prosecuted and their equipment confiscated. If we do not actively work to control spam then we only have ourselves to blame.

The Internet is a shared resource used by us all. Spam control must increase and improve in efficiency and effectiveness for us to retain control of our virtual lives.

This article was provided courtesy of Spam-Site which tests and reviews spam filters

Small Business Q & A: Beware Of Spam Withdrawals

Q: I am so sick of all the spam that is sent to my business
email address. I spend an hour every morning just trying to sort
out the good email from the bad. I know I could just delete it
all, but I'm afraid I'll accidentally delete email that might
be important to my business. Short of unplugging my computer,
what's the best solution for dealing with spam?

A: I feel your pain. I, too, miss the good old days when
the only time you'd spend an hour dealing with spam was trying
to pry it out of the can.

Due to the nature of my business, I get a lot of unwanted email.
I've been working on the Internet since 1995 and my email
address has been publicly exposed for most of that time, so I am
a spammer's delight. It is no exaggeration to say that I used
to receive more than 400 email messages a day. Out of those 400
messages about 10% were from people I knew, 10% were from people
I needed to know, and the rest were from people that I would
like to track down and field dress with a very dull knife.

Spammers, they are called the scourge of the Internet the
digital kin of the lowly telemarketer and dreaded junk mailer.

After listening to me complain about spam for months, my lead
engineer burst into my office a few weeks ago and announced,
"I've solved our spam problem! I've installed a spam filter
on our server that will prevent spam from getting through."

Great, I thought, now I can find something new to complain about.

I wondered what I would do with the extra two hours a day this
wonderful spam filter would give me. My joy quickly waned when
within a day my email went from 400 to 40. It was the saddest
day of my life. Sitting there staring at my empty email box I
suddenly felt very alone. At that moment I realized that not
only had I come to expect the morning deluge of email, but I
had come to find comfort in it. The spammers had become my
friends. They wanted me to get rich quick and brighten my smile.
They wanted to enhance my love life with generic Viagra and give
me great deals on miniature cameras, low interest loans,
waterfront property, and more. And the sheer number of folks
concerned about the abundance (or lack thereof) of my anatomy
was incredibly heart warming.

And the ladies that sent me email were so nice. They were
worried that I was lonely and offered to cure my loneliness if
only I gave them a credit card number. How sweet is that?

After a few days the withdrawal symptoms ceased and I was happy
to be free of the majority of the spam, though to this day I'm
afraid that I might be missing out on something grand.

You and I are not alone, Anna. According to a recent study by
eMarketer, the average Internet email user now receives 81
emails a day, and nearly one quarter of them are spam. Spam
now makes up more than 40% of all email and costs U.S. companies
more than $10 billion annually. Seventy-six billion unsolicited
e-mail messages will be delivered in 2003.

So how do spammers get your email address in the first place?
It's easier than you might think. While some spam comes as a
result of online purchases (yes, there are companies that will
sell your email address no matter what their privacy policy
says), that's just one of the ways spammers get you in their
sites.

Spammers use "spider software" to crawl the web and harvest
email address, so if you have a personal or company website
that has your email posted on it, sooner or later a spam spider
is going to grab your address and add it to the mill. Likewise
when you sign up to take online surveys or receive email
newsletters, you are potentially exposing yourself to spammers.

How can you reduce the amount of spam you get? Many people
think that you can't fight spam, so you should just accept it
and move on. In other words, you can not fight the Borg, so
smile and be assimilated into the fold. While spam is hard to
eliminate, there are things you can do to lessen the amount of
spam you receive and it's impact on your daily business life.

First, stop clicking on the "unsubscribe" links at the bottom of
spam emails. While some of the links are valid and will get you
removed from spammer's lists, other are actually there just to
let the spammer know that your address is valid. Click the link
to unsubscribe and you might actually see the amount of spam you
receive increase.

Second, it's a good idea to have at least two e-mail addresses.
Use one for personal or business use, and the other for surveys
and online purchases.

Third, consider installing a spam blocking software on your
computer or company network. There are a variety of spam
blocking applications on the market that range in price from
free to a hundred bucks. Though none of them will completely
eliminate spam, they can greatly reduce the volume you receive.
Search the Web for "spam filter" and investigate the ones that
you feel are right for you.

Your Internet Service Provider should also offer an anti-spam
application, but be careful how you use it. I have a client who
recently increased the sensitivity of their ISP spam blocker to
the point that nothing was getting delivered to their company
email accounts, including their own company newsletter. They
had effectively built an email brick wall that stopped the spam
and everything else. Not a good idea.

Before investing in a commercial spam blocker you might also try
adjusting the email filtering settings in your email software.
Microsoft Outlook, for example, lets you set rules for handling
incoming mail. The same is true with Outlook Express, Eudora,
and Apple's Mail OSX. Each have built-in filtering features
that can help eliminate unwanted email by parameters you set.

One thing to remember is that if spam didn't work, it would
quickly go away. In other words, if spammers weren't profiting
from sending unwanted emails they would go do something else.

Probably become a telemarketer or credit card debt collector.

Whether you use a commercial product or rely on your existing
email software to filter out spam, just be careful that you
don't batten down the hatches so tight that you no longer
receive any email at all.

Here's to your success!

Tim Knox
tim@dropshipwholesale.net
For information on starting your own online or eBay business,
visit http://www.dropshipwholesale.net
email address. I spend an hour every morning just trying to sort
out the good email from the bad. I know I could just delete it
all, but I'm afraid I'll accidentally delete email that might
be important to my business. Short of unplugging my computer,
what's the best solution for dealing with spam?

A: I feel your pain. I, too, miss the good old days when
the only time you'd spend an hour dealing with spam was trying
to pry it out of the can.

Due to the nature of my business, I get a lot of unwanted email.
I've been working on the Internet since 1995 and my email
address has been publicly exposed for most of that time, so I am
a spammer's delight. It is no exaggeration to say that I used
to receive more than 400 email messages a day. Out of those 400
messages about 10% were from people I knew, 10% were from people
I needed to know, and the rest were from people that I would
like to track down and field dress with a very dull knife.

Spammers, they are called the scourge of the Internet the
digital kin of the lowly telemarketer and dreaded junk mailer.

After listening to me complain about spam for months, my lead
engineer burst into my office a few weeks ago and announced,
"I've solved our spam problem! I've installed a spam filter
on our server that will prevent spam from getting through."

Great, I thought, now I can find something new to complain about.

I wondered what I would do with the extra two hours a day this
wonderful spam filter would give me. My joy quickly waned when
within a day my email went from 400 to 40. It was the saddest
day of my life. Sitting there staring at my empty email box I
suddenly felt very alone. At that moment I realized that not
only had I come to expect the morning deluge of email, but I
had come to find comfort in it. The spammers had become my
friends. They wanted me to get rich quick and brighten my smile.
They wanted to enhance my love life with generic Viagra and give
me great deals on miniature cameras, low interest loans,
waterfront property, and more. And the sheer number of folks
concerned about the abundance (or lack thereof) of my anatomy
was incredibly heart warming.

And the ladies that sent me email were so nice. They were
worried that I was lonely and offered to cure my loneliness if
only I gave them a credit card number. How sweet is that?

After a few days the withdrawal symptoms ceased and I was happy
to be free of the majority of the spam, though to this day I'm
afraid that I might be missing out on something grand.

You and I are not alone, Anna. According to a recent study by
eMarketer, the average Internet email user now receives 81
emails a day, and nearly one quarter of them are spam. Spam
now makes up more than 40% of all email and costs U.S. companies
more than $10 billion annually. Seventy-six billion unsolicited
e-mail messages will be delivered in 2003.

So how do spammers get your email address in the first place?
It's easier than you might think. While some spam comes as a
result of online purchases (yes, there are companies that will
sell your email address no matter what their privacy policy
says), that's just one of the ways spammers get you in their
sites.

Spammers use "spider software" to crawl the web and harvest
email address, so if you have a personal or company website
that has your email posted on it, sooner or later a spam spider
is going to grab your address and add it to the mill. Likewise
when you sign up to take online surveys or receive email
newsletters, you are potentially exposing yourself to spammers.

How can you reduce the amount of spam you get? Many people
think that you can't fight spam, so you should just accept it
and move on. In other words, you can not fight the Borg, so
smile and be assimilated into the fold. While spam is hard to
eliminate, there are things you can do to lessen the amount of
spam you receive and it's impact on your daily business life.

First, stop clicking on the "unsubscribe" links at the bottom of
spam emails. While some of the links are valid and will get you
removed from spammer's lists, other are actually there just to
let the spammer know that your address is valid. Click the link
to unsubscribe and you might actually see the amount of spam you
receive increase.

Second, it's a good idea to have at least two e-mail addresses.
Use one for personal or business use, and the other for surveys
and online purchases.

Third, consider installing a spam blocking software on your
computer or company network. There are a variety of spam
blocking applications on the market that range in price from
free to a hundred bucks. Though none of them will completely
eliminate spam, they can greatly reduce the volume you receive.
Search the Web for "spam filter" and investigate the ones that
you feel are right for you.

Your Internet Service Provider should also offer an anti-spam
application, but be careful how you use it. I have a client who
recently increased the sensitivity of their ISP spam blocker to
the point that nothing was getting delivered to their company
email accounts, including their own company newsletter. They
had effectively built an email brick wall that stopped the spam
and everything else. Not a good idea.

Before investing in a commercial spam blocker you might also try
adjusting the email filtering settings in your email software.
Microsoft Outlook, for example, lets you set rules for handling
incoming mail. The same is true with Outlook Express, Eudora,
and Apple's Mail OSX. Each have built-in filtering features
that can help eliminate unwanted email by parameters you set.

One thing to remember is that if spam didn't work, it would
quickly go away. In other words, if spammers weren't profiting
from sending unwanted emails they would go do something else.

Probably become a telemarketer or credit card debt collector.

Whether you use a commercial product or rely on your existing
email software to filter out spam, just be careful that you
don't batten down the hatches so tight that you no longer
receive any email at all.

Here's to your success!

Tim Knox
tim@dropshipwholesale.net
For information on starting your own online or eBay business,
visit http://www.dropshipwholesale.net

Tim Knox as the president and CEO of two successful technology
companies: B2Secure Inc., a Web-based hiring management software
company; and Digital Graphiti Inc., a software development company.
Tim is also the founder of dropshipwholesale.net, an ebusiness
dedicated to the success of online entrepreneurs.
http://www.dropshipwholesale.net
http://www.smallbusinessqa.com

Top 7 tips for reducing spam

You may publish this article, free of charge in your e-zine
or any publication.

The article must be published in its entirety, unedited,
without any changes to its content. You may format the
article to fit your requirements.

The resource box at the end of this article must be
included with the article.

A courtsey copy of your ezine or publication in which the
article is published will be appreciated.
email: article@business-development-strategies.com

Format 60 CPL. Word count 812 Copyright Patrick Silva, 2004

Top 7 tips for reducing spam.

Spam, also known as unsolicited emails is the scurge of the
Internet. Like annoying phone calls from telemarketers
trying to sell you something while you are having dinner,
spam is irretating, frustrating and takes up a lot of your
valuable time.

Spammers use special software called Email Harvesting
Robots to scour the Internet 24/7, 365 days a year to find
and gather email addresses.

These Robots look for the '@' symbol which is the symbol
used in all email addresses. Then they extract your email
address, without your knowledge or permission and add it
to their email address data base.

If you post your email address on your web site, your
e-zine, forums, chat rooms or anywhere on the Internet,
you are laying yourself wide open to email harvesting
robots and spammers.

Some unscrupulous scum send viruses through spam email that
can mess up or distroy your computer. Some of the viruses
that the spammers email you hide inside your system files,
replicate themselves and mail themselves to everyone in
your address book.

Spam is becoming such a huge problem that the US Government
is passing legislation to regulate unsolicited emails.
However the US Government has no control over spam that
originates in other countries.

Therefore, spam is a scurge that governments might not be
able to control.

But we, as individuals can protect ourselves by doing
whatever we can to reduce the amount of spam we receive.
Here are seven tips that will help you reduce spam.

1) NEVER EVER respond or reply to a spam email no matter
how tempting, curious or annoying the message is. Keep
your cool. If you do reply, the spammer will know that
your email address is an active one. Do not open any
attachments. Just delete the spam.

2) Never click on the 'unsubscribe' link in a spam email.
If you do, again the spammer will know that your email
address is active. He will sell your email address to
other spammers. The spam you receive will double or
tripple.

3) Protect your primary email address. This is the one that
you get from your Internet Service Provider (ISP.) Do
not give out your primary email address to anyone unless
you trust them. If you want to subscribe to a newsleter
with your primary email address, make sure that you read
the terms of use and their privacy policy.

4) Have an 'All Purpose' email address like a Yahoo or a
Hotmail email address to post in forums, chat rooms etc.
The email you receive to these addresses are web-based.
You can read your Yahoo or Hotmail email messages on your
Yahoo or Hotmail account on their web site without
downloading them into your computer. You can delete all
the spam right from those web sites.

5) If you have your own web site and have to give out your
email address for people to contact you, you can 'cloak'
your email address by substituting the HTML code for the
'@' symbol. This way, the email harvesting robots will
not be able to extract your email address from your
web site.

When you cloak your email address, you can include an
active email link such as 'Contact me' or 'Email me.'
When your contact clicks on the active email link, her
email program will open with your email address in the
'To' box.

6) Never ever buy anything from a spam email. The
information you give out to a spammer could be used for
illegal purposes. You could probably end up being a
victim of identity theft.

7) Black List every spammers email addresses.

To do this, you have to find the email address of the
spammer. Most spammers do not give their email addresses
in the 'From' box of the email or they give a phoney one.

To find out his real email address, click the 'File'
button on your email program. Then, when a window opens,
click on 'Properties.' This will open a window with two
tabs - General and Detail.

The 'General' tab will show you the message source and
display the email address of the sender. But the 'Detail'
tab will give you more details like IP address and the
email address of the sender.

Once you have the email address of the spammer, add it
to your 'Black List' in your email program. This is
somewhat of a tedious process I know. It will innitially
take some time to black list email addresses of every
spammer. But, believe me, it will surely be worth your
trouble on the long run.

The above tips, if followed, will greatly reduce the spam
you receive and save you a lot of annoyance, aggravation,
frustration and time.

One more point worth mentioning is the saying "To reduce
spam, do not be a spammer."



You may publish this article, free of charge in your e-zine
or any publication.

The article must be published in its entirety, unedited,
without any changes to its content. You may format the
article to fit your requirements.

The resource box at the end of this article must be
included with the article.

A courtsey copy of your ezine or publication in which the
article is published will be appreciated.
email: article@business-development-strategies.com

Format 60 CPL. Word count 812 Copyright Patrick Silva, 2004

Top 7 tips for reducing spam.

Spam, also known as unsolicited emails is the scurge of the
Internet. Like annoying phone calls from telemarketers
trying to sell you something while you are having dinner,
spam is irretating, frustrating and takes up a lot of your
valuable time.

Spammers use special software called Email Harvesting
Robots to scour the Internet 24/7, 365 days a year to find
and gather email addresses.

These Robots look for the '@' symbol which is the symbol
used in all email addresses. Then they extract your email
address, without your knowledge or permission and add it
to their email address data base.

If you post your email address on your web site, your
e-zine, forums, chat rooms or anywhere on the Internet,
you are laying yourself wide open to email harvesting
robots and spammers.

Some unscrupulous scum send viruses through spam email that
can mess up or distroy your computer. Some of the viruses
that the spammers email you hide inside your system files,
replicate themselves and mail themselves to everyone in
your address book.

Spam is becoming such a huge problem that the US Government
is passing legislation to regulate unsolicited emails.
However the US Government has no control over spam that
originates in other countries.

Therefore, spam is a scurge that governments might not be
able to control.

But we, as individuals can protect ourselves by doing
whatever we can to reduce the amount of spam we receive.
Here are seven tips that will help you reduce spam.

1) NEVER EVER respond or reply to a spam email no matter
how tempting, curious or annoying the message is. Keep
your cool. If you do reply, the spammer will know that
your email address is an active one. Do not open any
attachments. Just delete the spam.

2) Never click on the 'unsubscribe' link in a spam email.
If you do, again the spammer will know that your email
address is active. He will sell your email address to
other spammers. The spam you receive will double or
tripple.

3) Protect your primary email address. This is the one that
you get from your Internet Service Provider (ISP.) Do
not give out your primary email address to anyone unless
you trust them. If you want to subscribe to a newsleter
with your primary email address, make sure that you read
the terms of use and their privacy policy.

4) Have an 'All Purpose' email address like a Yahoo or a
Hotmail email address to post in forums, chat rooms etc.
The email you receive to these addresses are web-based.
You can read your Yahoo or Hotmail email messages on your
Yahoo or Hotmail account on their web site without
downloading them into your computer. You can delete all
the spam right from those web sites.

5) If you have your own web site and have to give out your
email address for people to contact you, you can 'cloak'
your email address by substituting the HTML code for the
'@' symbol. This way, the email harvesting robots will
not be able to extract your email address from your
web site.

When you cloak your email address, you can include an
active email link such as 'Contact me' or 'Email me.'
When your contact clicks on the active email link, her
email program will open with your email address in the
'To' box.

6) Never ever buy anything from a spam email. The
information you give out to a spammer could be used for
illegal purposes. You could probably end up being a
victim of identity theft.

7) Black List every spammers email addresses.

To do this, you have to find the email address of the
spammer. Most spammers do not give their email addresses
in the 'From' box of the email or they give a phoney one.

To find out his real email address, click the 'File'
button on your email program. Then, when a window opens,
click on 'Properties.' This will open a window with two
tabs - General and Detail.

The 'General' tab will show you the message source and
display the email address of the sender. But the 'Detail'
tab will give you more details like IP address and the
email address of the sender.

Once you have the email address of the spammer, add it
to your 'Black List' in your email program. This is
somewhat of a tedious process I know. It will innitially
take some time to black list email addresses of every
spammer. But, believe me, it will surely be worth your
trouble on the long run.

The above tips, if followed, will greatly reduce the spam
you receive and save you a lot of annoyance, aggravation,
frustration and time.

One more point worth mentioning is the saying "To reduce
spam, do not be a spammer."

Patrick Silva is a Seminar Instructor, A public Speaker and
a Researcher. He is the editor of 'A Learners Lounge,' a
free e-zine dedicated to inspire and motivate you to
achieve success. To subscribe, click on the link below
www.business-development-strategies.com/e-zine.html

 

Maximizing Email Security ROI: Stop Spam and Save!

Trust

This is the first of a five-part series on Maximizing Email Security ROI

In the realm of email security threats, the costs of spam are relatively easy to recognize. Although most organizations rarely, if ever, take the time to calculate their spam costs, they can easily account for the losses caused by spam with regards to employee productivity, consumption of IT resources and help desk costs. Harder to measure are the less obvious, and potentially catastrophic, costs incurred through legal liabilities and damage to an organizations reputation that can be caused by an ineffective spam filtering technology.Spam is much more than a nuisanceit costs corporations in both money and human resources. Understanding your exposure and taking steps to mitigate the problem not only saves capital, it can also help lower your exposure to costly litigation and damage to your companys well earned reputation.

Lost Productivity

Each spam message that makes its way past your organizations gateway costs the company money. The actual cost of each individual message is miniscule, but with an estimated 80% of all e-mail messages qualifying as spam, the constant flood of unwanted messages is of grave concern.How much time do employees spend dealing with spam, and how much does it cost you? Ferris Group estimates that the average employee spends 30 minutes each day dealing with spam, equating to 115 hours per employee, per year. Based on interviews with 82 Fortune 500 companies, Nucleus Research claims the average annual cost per employee of dealing with spam is now $1,934. While your costs will vary, it is safe to assume that if you dont have an effective spam filter, you are wasting thousands of dollars per employee per year to manage spam.

IT Resources Consumed

The costs of spam dont stop with the employee. According to CIO Magazine, costs include additional e-mail and networking equipment to maintain e-mail service quality, bandwidth costs from unwanted spam data across Internet links, and the staff costs to maintain and administer these additional loads.

Help Desk Cost

The ongoing barrage of spam generates increased calls to corporate help desks due to complaints and technical problems related to bad files, missing information, messages deleted by mistake and virus outbreaks. When a message is erroneously deleted as spam, Help Desk personnel are generally required to search through system backups to retrieve the missing email. Viruses and worms, frequently delivered via spam messages, also wreak havoc on the Help Desk as users call in for help restoring files and updating signatures. In addition, complaints from angry users tie up resources that could be spent on other issues.

Liability

Spam can force organizations to deal with lawsuits filed by employees for creating a hostile working environment. Spam containing pornography, insulting content or fraudulent phishing schemes can expose organizations that have not taken reasonable steps to combat such attacks. Employees unfamiliar with company policies may forward such content to fellow employees or even contacts outside the company, resulting in sexual harassment or countless other liability lawsuits.Each organizations exposure to such lawsuits varies, but large awards to the plaintiff are not uncommon when they do occur. In fact, the October 2002 issue of TechRepublic states that the average jury award against employers in [sexual harassment lawsuits] is $250,000. That amount often triples when attorney fees and litigation costs are added to the mix.

Reputation Cost

The cost of spam to a business reputation is equally difficult to define. The cost is nothing until something catastrophiclike a phishing attackhappens. The average individual victim of identity theft loses about $500, and businesses lose an average of $4,800. By allowing phishing and spoofing attacks into your business network, your organization is exposing itself, its brand and its employees to enormous risk. If your organizations trademarks or brand are used in phishing attacks, the cost to your companys brand is estimated at between $100,000 and $150,000.

What You Can Do Now To Stop the Spam

Knowing the risks involved in spam is the first step to solving the problem. CipherTrusts FREE whitepaper, Controlling Spam: The IronMail Way describes the issues that put your email system at risk. Download it today to learn more about how you can stop spam, secure your email system, and protect your company and employees from email-borne threats.Part II of this series will describe the issues involved in determining ROI for anti-virus software and services as they apply to email.

This is the first of a five-part series on Maximizing Email Security ROI

In the realm of email security threats, the costs of spam are relatively easy to recognize. Although most organizations rarely, if ever, take the time to calculate their spam costs, they can easily account for the losses caused by spam with regards to employee productivity, consumption of IT resources and help desk costs. Harder to measure are the less obvious, and potentially catastrophic, costs incurred through legal liabilities and damage to an organizations reputation that can be caused by an ineffective spam filtering technology.Spam is much more than a nuisanceit costs corporations in both money and human resources. Understanding your exposure and taking steps to mitigate the problem not only saves capital, it can also help lower your exposure to costly litigation and damage to your companys well earned reputation.

Lost Productivity

Each spam message that makes its way past your organizations gateway costs the company money. The actual cost of each individual message is miniscule, but with an estimated 80% of all e-mail messages qualifying as spam, the constant flood of unwanted messages is of grave concern.How much time do employees spend dealing with spam, and how much does it cost you? Ferris Group estimates that the average employee spends 30 minutes each day dealing with spam, equating to 115 hours per employee, per year. Based on interviews with 82 Fortune 500 companies, Nucleus Research claims the average annual cost per employee of dealing with spam is now $1,934. While your costs will vary, it is safe to assume that if you dont have an effective spam filter, you are wasting thousands of dollars per employee per year to manage spam.

IT Resources Consumed

The costs of spam dont stop with the employee. According to CIO Magazine, costs include additional e-mail and networking equipment to maintain e-mail service quality, bandwidth costs from unwanted spam data across Internet links, and the staff costs to maintain and administer these additional loads.

Help Desk Cost

The ongoing barrage of spam generates increased calls to corporate help desks due to complaints and technical problems related to bad files, missing information, messages deleted by mistake and virus outbreaks. When a message is erroneously deleted as spam, Help Desk personnel are generally required to search through system backups to retrieve the missing email. Viruses and worms, frequently delivered via spam messages, also wreak havoc on the Help Desk as users call in for help restoring files and updating signatures. In addition, complaints from angry users tie up resources that could be spent on other issues.

Liability

Spam can force organizations to deal with lawsuits filed by employees for creating a hostile working environment. Spam containing pornography, insulting content or fraudulent phishing schemes can expose organizations that have not taken reasonable steps to combat such attacks. Employees unfamiliar with company policies may forward such content to fellow employees or even contacts outside the company, resulting in sexual harassment or countless other liability lawsuits.Each organizations exposure to such lawsuits varies, but large awards to the plaintiff are not uncommon when they do occur. In fact, the October 2002 issue of TechRepublic states that the average jury award against employers in [sexual harassment lawsuits] is $250,000. That amount often triples when attorney fees and litigation costs are added to the mix.

Reputation Cost

The cost of spam to a business reputation is equally difficult to define. The cost is nothing until something catastrophiclike a phishing attackhappens. The average individual victim of identity theft loses about $500, and businesses lose an average of $4,800. By allowing phishing and spoofing attacks into your business network, your organization is exposing itself, its brand and its employees to enormous risk. If your organizations trademarks or brand are used in phishing attacks, the cost to your companys brand is estimated at between $100,000 and $150,000.

What You Can Do Now To Stop the Spam

Knowing the risks involved in spam is the first step to solving the problem. CipherTrusts FREE whitepaper, Controlling Spam: The IronMail Way describes the issues that put your email system at risk. Download it today to learn more about how you can stop spam, secure your email system, and protect your company and employees from email-borne threats.Part II of this series will describe the issues involved in determining ROI for anti-virus software and services as they apply to email.

CipherTrust is the leader in anti-spam and email security. Learn more by downloading our free whitepaper, Controlling Spam: The IronMail Way or by visiting www.ciphertrust.com.

Demand for Spam? It exists

Do you like spam? No, I'm not kidding. Everybody knows what spam is, almost everybody seems to have learned by heart simple advice like "do not click ..." "do not respond..." , "do not buy..." but
On March 23, 2005 Mirapoint and the Radicati Group, a consulting and market research firm, released preliminary results of their end-user survey on email hygiene. "This preliminary data is surprising and somewhat shocking to us," said Marcel Nienhuis, market analyst at the Radicati Group.
The survey shows that some end users haven't learned the lesson and still make the same blunders.

Blunder 1 -- clicking on embedded links within spam (not including the unsubscribe link) -- 31% of respondents have done it at least once. The most dangerous mistake.
Clicking on any embedded links in spam messages helps spammers determine ‘live' email accounts, which means more spam. What's worse, users can pick viruses, Trojans or other malicious code--just by clicking on embedded links. It may cause various problems, including loss of confidential information--identity theft, and loss of money from bank accounts as a result.

Users shouldn't forget about such threat as phishing. Not long ago, on February. 15, 2005, it was the Radicati Group that pointed out --fraud and phishing types of email are one of the fastest growing segments of spam. In the first quarter of 2005 the Radicati Group expects fraudulent emails to reach 8% of all spam.

Blunder 2 -- trying to unsubscribe to spam using the ‘unsubscribe' link in the email -- 18% of respondents
Some users are naive enough to think that spammers really won't send any junk mail to their addresses if they tell them not to. Haven't they heard that spammers use the unsubscribe link solely to identify active email accounts. When individual email addresses or entire domains are found to be active, they are doomed to flood of spam.

Blunder 3 -- What's more: Over 10% of respondents have purchased products advertised in spam. Sending out huge volumes of spam is very cheap, so let's face it--spam is an effective means of advertising. Spam is booming, and these 10% users who actually bought anything advertised by spam, are partly to blame for it.

The consequences can be very serious when such a user is at work. Online criminals find more and more ways of stealing valuable information, some of these techniques include spam. Spam filters won't solve the whole problem; much still depends on end users. Marcel Nienhuis, analyst from the Radicati Group, was absolutely right when said " no technology in the world can protect an organisation if users exercise bad email behaviour."
On March 23, 2005 Mirapoint and the Radicati Group, a consulting and market research firm, released preliminary results of their end-user survey on email hygiene. "This preliminary data is surprising and somewhat shocking to us," said Marcel Nienhuis, market analyst at the Radicati Group.
The survey shows that some end users haven't learned the lesson and still make the same blunders.

Blunder 1 -- clicking on embedded links within spam (not including the unsubscribe link) -- 31% of respondents have done it at least once. The most dangerous mistake.
Clicking on any embedded links in spam messages helps spammers determine ‘live' email accounts, which means more spam. What's worse, users can pick viruses, Trojans or other malicious code--just by clicking on embedded links. It may cause various problems, including loss of confidential information--identity theft, and loss of money from bank accounts as a result.

Users shouldn't forget about such threat as phishing. Not long ago, on February. 15, 2005, it was the Radicati Group that pointed out --fraud and phishing types of email are one of the fastest growing segments of spam. In the first quarter of 2005 the Radicati Group expects fraudulent emails to reach 8% of all spam.

Blunder 2 -- trying to unsubscribe to spam using the ‘unsubscribe' link in the email -- 18% of respondents
Some users are naive enough to think that spammers really won't send any junk mail to their addresses if they tell them not to. Haven't they heard that spammers use the unsubscribe link solely to identify active email accounts. When individual email addresses or entire domains are found to be active, they are doomed to flood of spam.

Blunder 3 -- What's more: Over 10% of respondents have purchased products advertised in spam. Sending out huge volumes of spam is very cheap, so let's face it--spam is an effective means of advertising. Spam is booming, and these 10% users who actually bought anything advertised by spam, are partly to blame for it.

The consequences can be very serious when such a user is at work. Online criminals find more and more ways of stealing valuable information, some of these techniques include spam. Spam filters won't solve the whole problem; much still depends on end users. Marcel Nienhuis, analyst from the Radicati Group, was absolutely right when said " no technology in the world can protect an organisation if users exercise bad email behaviour."

Alexandra Gamanenko currently works at Raytown Corporation, LLC—an independent software developing company. This company provides software capable of disabling information-stealing modules, which can be hidden inside spyware as well as viruses, worms and Trojans.
Learn more -- visit the company's website
www.anti-keyloggers.com

What SPAM Means:

Darren Miller

Has anyone else noticed the sudden blast of unsolicited e-mail (spam) loaded with url's for the unsuspecting and curious Internet surfer to click on?

Has anyone else noticed the sudden blast of unsolicited e-mail (spam) loaded with url's for the unsuspecting and curious Internet surfer to click on?

What's even better, the bulk of this SPAM is in a foreign language. I was at a neighborhood party this weekend and you can't imagine the number of people who asked me for assistance with this. They have no idea what to do.

The sad fact is there are a lot of Stupid People who have nothing better to do and can't seem to find a better way of making a buck than Annoying Me and everyone else subject to their stupidity with spam. I guess that's a little harsh. Not really.

How Does The Average Person Deal With This

I wrote in a previous article how bad a feel for the average person having to deal with such things. It is increasingly becoming a nightmare for all to deal with. For the technical among us, it's not as bad given that we deal with such things on a technical level almost everyday.

Given this current flood of SPAM I thought I would post an article I wrote quite some time ago. It's a short article, and may be old news for some, but I can tell you that many people still don't follow the basic's when dealing with SPAM.

How You May Be Helping Spammers

I can't imagine that anyone with an e-mail address has not received unsolicited e-mail or spam in one form or another. What do you do when you receive these types of e-mails. Do you delete them right away, respond to them informing the sender you do not wish to receive them, or forward them to a friend whom you think might be interested in the information?

When the Internet as we know it was very young and most unsolicited e-mails where either by accident or the result of opt-in subscriptions, you could respond with the word "unsubscribe" in the reply subject and your name was taken off the list. That quickly changed once people found out how powerful a marketing tool e-mail was. Now, most of the time you respond to unsolicited e-mails you are letting the sender know that your e-mail address is active or alive. Instead of being taken off the list you are targeted more aggressively. The sender of the e-mail may also sell your e-mail address to other e-marketers, substantially increasing the number of unsolicited e-mails your receive.

WHow Do Spammers Get My E-mail Address

Well, there are quite a few ways, but one of the ways spammers get hold of your e-mail address is literally by guessing. For instance, say your e-mail address is part of the domain "-notrealdomain-.com", and your e-mail address is "me@-notrealdomain-.com", the spammers have programs that will generate thousands of combinations of names / domains i.e. "me@-notrealdomain-.com", "you@-notrealdomain-.com", "them@-notrealdomain-.com" hoping that somewhere along the line the target e-mail address exists. It's really not difficult to do, since a computer can do this over and over again. If you receive one of these e-mails and reply to it, you have just informed the sender that they did indeed find a live address. It's all downhill from there.

Spoofing E-mail Addresses

Another interesting tactic is to send someone an e-mail and make it appear as if it came from your address. Have you ever received an e-mail from someone you don't know and don't have in you contact list asking you to stop sending them unsolicited e-mails? Many people experience this problem. Basically, the spammer made the recipient of the spam think you sent it to them. This is called e-mail spoofing and is relatively easy to do. The spammers use mail servers that allow something called "mail relay." This allows them to send e-mails from any source address (even yours) to any target address.

Conclusion

A few things to keep in mind when dealing with unsolicited e-mails and spam:

If you are starting to receive SPAM in alternate languages, check your e-mail client for the ability to filter / block SPAM by specifying language types.

If you only speak English, and don't expect to receive e-mail in German, then block it;

If your SPAM filter downloads data from your vendor for known SPAM sites make sure to perform and schedule the download to happen frequently;

If you receive e-mail or spam from someone you don't know, do not respond to it, just delete it;

If someone informs you that they are receiving spam from your e-mail address, inform them that it was not sent by you and most likely came from a spammer who spoofed your address. Tell them to just delete it;

Never give out your e-mail address unless you are sure the site or organization will be responsible for it's privacy;

If you are going to sign up for something like a news article or other information, read their privacy statement, agreement, and disclaimer before doing so; And

Review the entire privacy statement to make sure there are no check boxes or radio buttons on by default. You never know what you are agreeing to.

These are just a few of the things you can do to help prevent SPAM from becoming a huge burden. You will most likely not be able to prevent all SPAM from getting to your inbox, but you sure can decrease the number.

Darren Miller is an Information Security Consultant with over sixteen years experience. He has written many technology & security articles, some of which have been published in nationally circulated magazines & periodicals. Darren is a staff writer for www.defendingthenet.com

How To Stop Unwanted Email Spam

You can stop unwanted email spam, you can choose to reduce spam email or you can do nothing and continue to be annoyed. Those are your only choices because spam email is not likely to go away.

You can stop unwanted email spam, you can choose to reduce spam email or you can do nothing and continue to be annoyed. Those are your only choices because spam email is not likely to go away.

Every single one of us would love to stop unwanted emails but only a very small percentage of people do anything except complain about spam.

You might remember a couple of years ago they passed a new federal spam law that was supposed to eliminate spam email. So why is spam still around and why is it so difficult to get rid of it?

Email spammers buy lists of email addresses from list brokers, who compile their lists by harvesting email addresses from the Internet. Then they send millions of unwanted email messages to these email addresses with one click of a mouse.

Email spammers make huge amounts of money from these lists and that's why they do it. These email spammers are breaking the federal spam law, The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, in every way possible.

This federal spam law, which became effective January 1, 2004, is next to impossible to enforce. Email spammers make so much money they can afford to outsmart The Federal Trade Commission with sophisticated technology.

Now that you know the origin of spam email and why email spammers are sending this junk you realize that spam is not likely to ever go away. But that doesn't mean you can't do anything about it. Here are a couple of ways to significantly reduce spam that won't cost you a cent.

Don't display your email address in newsgroup postings, chat rooms or in an online service's membership directory. Sometimes email spammers use these sources to harvest email addresses.

Another thing you can do is create two email addresses with one for personal messages and the other for public use, such as in newsgroups or chat rooms.

You can also create an account at a disposable or free email address service. You can then have those emails forwarded to your permanent email address. If the disposable address starts to receive spam, you can turn if off without affecting the permanent address.

You should also create a unique email address because email spammers often use dictionary attacks to sort through possible name combinations at some Internet Service Providers. A common name, like johndoe or thesmiths may get more spam than a unique name like fx721OMe9.

Check your email account to see if it provides a tool to filter out potential spam or a way to channel spam into a bulk email folder. When you're choosing an Internet Service Provider consider what email options they offer.

If you want to end your headaches, you can stop unwanted email spam altogether. All it takes is installing an Internet spam filter. Most are reasonably priced between $25 and $40 depending on where you get it.

Once you install an Internet spam filter you'll wonder why it took you so long because it takes all of the frustration away from your email.

A good Internet spam filter will completely eliminate spam email and that lets you take back control of your Internet message Inbox. You'll have to find something else to get annoyed about because a good Internet spam filter will block 100% of unwanted spam.

Internet spam filters stop unwanted email forever, and after all, isn't that the idea?

Copyright 2005 Spyware Information.com All Rights Reserved.

This article is provided by http://www.spyware-information.com
We offer you the safest, most effective and easy-to-use Internet spam filter available, blocking 100% of unwanted spam at
http://www.spyware-information.com/anti-spam-filter.html

I Think I've Become A Spam Addict

I THINK I'VE BECOME A SPAM ADDICT

I recently wrote an article, "5 Reasons Why You Should Post
A Free Classified Ad" and have received a lot of positive
feedback about the article but nobody said anything nice
about the spamsters.

I tried to imagine what the Internet would be like without
spam and concluded my life would be negatively impacted by
it's absence.

Most of the spam I get is funny. Ridiculous claims, poor
syntax and bad spelling seem to be the constants.
Sometimes when I try to reply to their scheme I am told by
the server that they have been shut down. These pathetic
souls are promoting something that is, at least
temporarily, out of business. They cite U.S. House and
Senate bills that died in session as evidence they are not
spamsters. I have actually been advised that unsolicited
bulk email is not spam.

When I check my email and find no new messages it's a let
down. I feel unpopular, unloved. If it's a slow day and
all I have is a little spam I read it. It's pretty obvious
these front line spamsters have been taken in by the slick
website that provides a bundle of services for a fee which
includes "blasting" a pitch to millions of "opt in" email
addresses. I feel better just knowing there is somebody
dumber than Stupidman. They're so dumb they probably don't
know they're spamming plus they paid for the privilege.

I used to save the "Nigerian" letters that arrived by snail
mail. The stamps were pretty and there was some variation
in the story line. Visitors that came to my office were
amused by my collection and often requested copies. I
received a Nigerian email a couple of weeks ago that was
sent from a Yahoo! account.

What a pleasant, nostalgic experience. The poor grammar,
their admission of stealing $70,000,000 from the Nigerian
government (death sentence ?), offering me 30% to committ
a federal crime by laundering the money. All I had to do
was provide them with the information necessary to raid my
bank account and steal my identity. Sure it was spam, but
it was entertaining. The Yahoo! account made me suspicious
that this might be a "fake" Nigerian scheme. I hope not,
as I thought it was uplifting to know that the Nigerians
were using the Internet to improve their economy.

I've even received some educational spam. Got a long chain
letter scheme in Spanish (or Spammish as it is referred to
in the Stupidman household). It became a project for my
son, Greased Lightning, and me to translate. As he'll be
taking Spanish II next year this was a worthwhile family
project. He even enjoyed it.

I don't like receiving the porn spam. It might be okay if
I was single but I'm not. I worry that I'll be accused by
The Boss, Mrs. Stupidman, or the kids of being a porn
addict. (It's bad enough being a spam addict.) All I can
do is delete it. On the rare occasions when they offer an
"unsubscribe" you have to do it at a website. That sounds
like a good way to get on even more porn lists.

If you are viewing an empty mail box and missing out on the
rich, cultural experiences like the Nigerian letter and
Spammish email, it may not be because you are unpopular.
It's probably due to your spam filters. Turn them off,
have some fun and read the spam.

Stupidman, Internet Guru Trainee. Doesn't that say it all.

How To Prevent Being Lynched By Heavy Handed Spam Laws

California's new heavy handed spam law, slated to take effect on 1 January 2004, not only provides stiff fines PER SPAM EMAIL sent. It also opens the doors wide for civil litigation against a spammer, and gross amounts of cash recovery for "damages" done to the recipient. In a society that is already embroiled in lawsuit frenzy, this law appears to be a ticket to instant riches for any California resident that owns an email account.

The term "spam" of course, refers to unwanted commercial e-mail that clogs millions of computer mailboxes every day. The Internet culture's current mindset toward spam is so near to reaching critical mass, it's akin to that of a rabid and out of control lynch mob in old Tombstone - to put it succinctly, "shucks, let's hang somebody."

While 30 or so states in the US now have anti-spam laws on the books, most of them are difficult to enforce against real spammers (the ones who send multi-millions of emails at a whack, hawking this week's special snake oil.) Those people often are located outside US borders, and are about as easy to track down as a ghost.

It's my prognostication that few if any real spammers will be lynched. The people who are most likely to be harmed are legitimate businesses who participate openly in electronic marketing, conducting their affairs above board with real addresses and real phone numbers.

Small emarketers who derive part or all of their income from email marketing, and have worked to develop their own opt-in emailing list, appear to be the ones who are most vulnerable to aggressive anti-spam laws.

The fact is this: Sooner or later, some list member will "forget" that s/he opted-in, and will inevitably scream SPAM at the top of their lungs. With the prospect for major remuneration under the California law, there undoubtedly will be those who suddenly contract a case of chronic "opt-in amnesia." Managing the most valid opt-in emailing list in the Universe is about to become even more taxing.

What To Do?

1. - Develop an iron-clad opt-in agreement that the new subscriber must read and electronically agree to (via a radio button, checkbox, etc.) before s/he is presented with your opt-in form.

2. - Rigorously use a double opt-in subscription process, where the first message the new subscriber receives will require them to "confirm" the voluntary status of their opt-in action. It's likely that this process will reduce somewhat the number of new subscribers who make it all the way to your opt-in list. Still, you'll wind up with a higher quality list, containing subscribers who are serious about reading your emails.

3. - Email any existing lists you have, explaining that you are cleaning your lists, and asking those subscribers to re-subscribe under your new policy. (Offer them something good in return for their trouble.) You may lose some subscribers, but those are probably the ones who never paid attention to your mailings to begin with, and are most likely to suddenly contract "amnesia."

4. - Retain electronic confirmations of all opt-in actions. It would be wise to save those records externally to disk on a daily basis.

5. - Provide an automated removal link in all emails sent. A "reply to this email for removal" or "email this address for removal" statement may not be sufficient in the near future.

7. - Sign all messages you send, top and bottom, with your full name and email address. Keeping your name in front of your subscribers will greatly improve their ability to recall their voluntary opt-in action.

8. - Be sure your email subject line relates directly to the context of your message body. This is a prominent clause in most current spam laws.

9. - Use only a valid and working return address for any email sent. The recipient must be able to reach you (or a member of your staff) by clicking the reply button to any email received.

While I don't appreciate being spammed, I've also learned to quietly use the technology available to me, ie. email filters and delete buttons. Still, it won't surprise me in the least to soon hear of some guy who has filed a million dollar lawsuit because he contracted carpal tunnel syndrome in his "delete" finger.

Blind and uninformed legislation appears to be laying a foundation for just such a frivolous boondoggle, as slick legislators continue to jump on the bandwagon, "taking action" on popular social issues as a self-serving exercise in ensuring their own re-elections.

What I fear most however, is a terminally diseased social consciousness that refuses to take individual responsibility, while expecting big government to be a panacea for all ills, no matter how small or insignificant.

Dan B. Cauthron runs several websites and publishes his 100% original and highly opinionated *Revenew QuikTips* online whenever he has something significant to say. To subscribe please visit: http://DanBCauthron.com Dan also operates: http://Earn-Revenew.com
http://SlideInADSGenerator.com

Copyright 2003 - All Rights Reserved Worldwide Serenity Marketing Group - Dan B. Cauthron

Search Engine Spam: Useful Knowledge for the Web Site Promoter

Before getting started on using gateway pages and other HTML techniques to improve your search engine ranking, you need to know a little about spam and spamdexing. Spamming the search engines (or spamdexing) is the practice of using unethical or unprofessional techniques to try to improve search engine rankings. You should be aware of what constitutes spamming so as to avoid trouble with the search engines. For example, if you have a page with a white background, and you have a table that has a blue background and white text in it, you are actually spamming the Infoseek engine without even knowing it! Infoseek will see white text and see a white page background, concluding that your background color and your page color are the same so you are spamming! It will not be able to tell that the white text is actually within a blue table and is perfectly legible. It is silly, but that will cause that page to be dropped off the index. You can get it back on by changing the text color in the table to, say, a light gray and resubmitting the page to Infoseek. See what a difference that makes? Yet you had no idea that your page was considered spam! Generally, it is very easy to know what not to do so as to avoid being labeled a spammer and having your pages or your site penalized. By following a few simple rules, you can safely improve your search engine rankings without unknowingly spamming the engines and getting penalized for it.

What constitutes spam?
Some techniques are clearly considered as an attempt to spam the engines. Where possible, you should avoid these:

Keyword stuffing. This is the repeated use of a word to increase its frequency on a page. Search engines now have the ability to analyze a page and determine whether the frequency is above a "normal" level in proportion to the rest of the words in the document.
Invisible text. Some webmasters stuff keywords at the bottom of a page and make their text color the same as that of the page background. This is also detectable by the engines.
Tiny text. Same as invisible text but with tiny, illegible text.
Page redirects. Some engines, especially Infoseek, do not like pages that take the user to another page without his or her intervention, e.g. using META refresh tags, cgi scripts, Java, JavaScript, or server side techniques.
Meta tags stuffing. Do not repeat your keywords in the Meta tags more than once, and do not use keywords that are unrelated to your site's content.
Never use keywords that do not apply to your site's content.
Do not create too many doorways with very similar keywords.
Do not submit the same page more than once on the same day to the same search engine.
Do not submit virtually identical pages, i.e. do not simply duplicate a web page, give the copies different file names, and submit them all. That will be interpreted as an attempt to flood the engine.
Code swapping. Do not optimize a page for top ranking, then swap another page in its place once a top ranking is achieved.
Do not submit doorways to submission directories like Yahoo!
Do not submit more than the allowed number of pages per engine per day or week. Each engine has a limit on how many pages you can manually submit to it using its online forms. Currently these are the limits: AltaVista 1-10 pages per day; HotBot 50 pages per day; Excite 25 pages per week; Infoseek 50 pages per day but unlimited when using e-mail submissions. Please note that this is not the total number of pages that can be indexed, it is just the total number that can be submitted. If you can only submit 25 pages to Excite, for example, and you have a 1000 page site, that's no problem. The search engine will come crawling your site and index all pages, including those that you did not submit.
Gray Areas
There are certain practices that can be considered spam by the search engine when they are actually just part of honest web site design. For example, Infoseek does not index any page with a fast page refresh. Yet, refresh tags are commonly used by web site designers to produce visual effects or to take people to a new location of a page that has been moved. Also, some engines look at the text color and background color and if they match, that page is considered spam. But you could have a page with a white background and a black table somewhere with white text in it. Although perfectly legible and legitimate, that page will be ignored by some engines. Another example is that Infoseek advises against (but does not seem to drop from the index) having many pages with links to one page. Even though this is meant to discourage spammers, it also places many legitimate webmasters in the spam region (almost anyone with a large web site or a web site with an online forum always has their pages linking back to the home page). These are just a few examples of gray areas in this business. Fortunately, because the search engine people know that they exist, they will not penalize your entire site just because of them.

What are the penalties for spamdexing?
There is an inappropriate amount of fear over the penalties of spamming. Many webmasters fear that they may spam the engines without their knowledge and then have their entire site banned from the engines forever. That just doesn't happen that easily! The people who run the search engines know that you can be a perfectly legitimate and honest web site owner who, because of the nature of your web site, has pages that appear to be spam to the engine. They know that their search engines are not smart enough to know exactly who is spamming and who happens to be in the spam zone by mistake. So they do not generally ban your entire site from their search engine just because some of your pages look like spam. They only penalize the rankings of the offending pages. Any non-offending page is not penalized. Only in the most extreme cases, where you aggressively spam them and go against the recommendations above, flooding their engine with spam pages, will they ban your entire site. Some engines, like HotBot, do not even have a lifetime ban policy on spammers. As long as you are not an intentional and aggressive spammer, you should not worry about your entire site being penalized or banned from the engines. Only the offending pages will have their ranking penalized.

Is there room for responsible search engine positioning?
Yes! Definitely! In fact, the search engines do not discourage responsible search engine positioning. Responsible search engine position is good for everybody - it helps the users find the sites they are looking for, it helps the engines do a better job of delivering relevant results, and it gets you the traffic you want!

As a webmaster, you should not be too afraid that you are spamming the search engines in your quest for higher search engine rankings. No question about it, though, spam is something that every webmaster should understand thoroughly. Fortunately, it is easy to understand it. So learn the rules, re-examine your web pages, resubmit to the engines, then create gateway pages to get better ranking on the engines, using the rules above. If you need any more information on search engine spamming and search engine positioning, see http://www.searchpositioning.com. I wish you the best of fortune in your web promotional efforts!

David Gikandi

support@searchpositioning.com
SearchPositioning.com
http://www.searchpositioning.com
Positioning is 95% of your business!

Stop Spam and Viruses at Same Time

The recent outbreak of viruses caused no end of headaches for those infected as well as computer users who repeatedly received tainted email.

Though this virus didn't rate high for physical destruction, it did rate as one of the wildest and most criminally intent viruses ever.

"Bad Trans" reportedly logs actual keystrokes and then transmits credit card and password data it captures to the person who released it.

If that isn't scary enough, the old safety rule of "you have to open the attachment to get the virus" doesn't apply here! Anyone using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express runs the risk of infection if they use the preview pane - which most do.

Virtually anyone who had their anti-virus software up to date found the virus relatively easy to stop before infecting the system, but they also found dealing with the virus highly inconvenient.

Every time an infected email arrived they had to stop and clean it up.

Adding to the inconvenience - this latest virus carries a 40K attachment, no small file on a dial-up connection, especially if you get it emailed to you several times a day.

Quite frankly, I got extremely tired of downloading this virus, which seemed to come in wave after wave.

Out of curiosity, I looked to see if I could find a program that would let me check my email before downloading it.

I went to the popular download site http://www.download.com and started looking around.

After some searching I discovered a program called "Spam Buster", a free program that allows you to check the headers in your email box before downloading to your computer.

What makes the program so great is that you can see who the email is from, the subject line (a big spam tip-off), the name, size of the file and the date.

Now this solution won't apply in every instance (no solution ever does) but it really helped out this time.

Every version of the virus I saw carried two easily identifiable characteristics - an re: in the usually blank subject line and an underscore ( _ ) in front of the return email address.

With this program I was able to immediately spot the virus and eliminate it with a simple mouse click.

However, I noticed an excellent side benefit!

I also eliminated the vast majority of unsolicited email bombarding my computer daily.

Rather than wait for dozens of messages to download, I quickly click the message subjects and push delete.

What a time saver!

This last wave of viruses should teach all of us that prevention and preparation hold the key to keeping our online sanity.

Make sure to keep your anti-virus program updated weekly and consider checking your email before it ever downloads to your computer.

Furthermore, expect viruses to get more sophisticated and more destructive, and it is your responsibility to protect your computer, your data, and personal information.

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Are You Compliant With The Law? Take The CAN-SPAM QUIZ!

Are You Compliant? Take The CAN-SPAM QUIZ!

Test Your Knowledge of The Law - 22 Questions You Should Know.

ANSWER THESE STATEMENTS: TRUE OR FALSE?

The Can Spam Act went into effect Jan. 1st, but marketers have 90 days to become compliant with the new law.

The Can Spam Act Pre-empts many tougher state anti-spam laws.

You may send commercial email with falsified headers.

You must include your phone number in all commercial emails.

You may send UCE as long as the message contains an opt-out mechanism, a functioning return email address, a valid subject line indicating the email is an advertisement, and the legitimate physical address of the sender.

You must include a privacy policy when you collect subscribers.

You may harvest email addresses as long as the messages you send contain an opt-out mechanism, a functioning return email address, a valid subject line indicating the email is an advertisement, and the legitimate physical address of the sender.

You must have a process for handling unsubscribes within a 15 day window.

Referencing or including a link to a commercial entity in an email message is sufficient to make it a commercial email message.

You must add your postal address to all your marketing emails.

The Can Spam Act is enforced by the Attorney General in the state wherein the alleged spam originated.

You must not share the address of a person who unsubscribed with any other entity seeking to send that party email.

It's O.K. to use a misleading subject in your marketing email, as long as you identify the email as an advertisement or solicitation somewhere within the body of the email.

The FTC is required to report back to Congress within two years on the effectiveness of the law and the need, if any, for modifications.

Wireless spam is not covered by the law.

The new law allows for a $250 fine per non compliant email, and possible jail time, for intentionally sending UCE with falsified header information.

All persons in charge of running web servers that relay email must close all open relays within 90 days of enacted of the law (Jan. 1st).

Sending commercial email through an open relay is prohibited by the Can Spam Act.

You must include an unsubscribe mechanism in every commercial email.

Under the law, businesses knowingly promoted in UCE with false or misleading header information are also subject to FTC penalties and enforcement remedies, regardless of whether the FTC is able to identify the spammer who initiated the email.

All commercial email (except those sent to opt in lists) must contain ADV in the subject line, to indicate the email is an advertisement.

All commercial email (except those sent to opt in lists) must be identified as an advertisement or solicitation.

For answers to these questions, take the quiz online at: http://www.EmailMarketingSurvey.com/CAN-SPAM-Quiz.html

Jim Symonds, EmailMarketingSurvey.com. All Rights Reserved.

Jim Symonds publishes "Web Secrets Exposed!" Eye popping, and jaw dropping, sneaky little web design tricks & web marketing secrets revealed. How'd they do that? We'll show you! Subscribe Now FR*E! Learn 1001 Sneaky Tips 'n Tricks http://www.WebSecretsExposed.com

Affiliate Marketing and Spam: The New Realities

The growing backlash against spam is changing the way affiliates need to run their business.
With all the tools available to affiliate marketers, nothing quite compares to a well-written email that that introduces you, explains your affiliate's benefits, and piques the prospect's interest. The path to marketing success is then relatively straightforward - you create a killer letter and get it to as many prospects as possible. Simple, isn't it?

Not any more.

Over the past year there has been a shift in the online environment's view of unsolicited email so pervasive that affiliate marketers cannot afford to ignore it. The movement has made changes in the structural relationship between a company and its affiliate marketers, and has even moved offline into the hands of lawmakers (for better or worse).

Three realties stand out:

- A Spam complaint you are unprepared for can cause significant disruption to your business.

Spam is, to a great degree, still in the eye of the beholder. Someone who doesn't remember opting in to your program and claims your email to be Spam has an unfortunate degree of credibility from square one. ISP's are so intent on shutting down possible Spam sources, that you can quickly find yourself without an account or with a suspended account "pending investigation". The potential disruption - from advertising being spoiled, to confusion on the part of customers, to even loss of access to database information on the ISP's site, can be enormous.

Further, it's hard to envision doing large-scale advertising without sending one email that upsets someone, so this situation is a virtual certainty for marketers at some point.

- The company you are affiliated with has less incentive to back you than you might realize

How many people remember the old Mission Impossible series on TV? The agent always received a tape that explained the mission, wished him luck and by the way..if any of you are caught we will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Companies offering affiliate programs are playing a version of that tape now when they tell you they have a "Zero Tolerance" policy for Spam. It sounds noble, but what it means is that unless you are one of their top super affiliates they'd rather dump you than get themselves caught up in a Spam issue. You are guilty until you prove yourself innocent.

- You can make changes to react to this new environment and emerge a stronger marketer.

Change 1 - Understand Your Sources

Instead of simply mailing to opt in and safe lists on a whim, get to know the people producing these lists. Send a personal email to the list owner and mention how concerned you are about unintentionally spamming anyone. If your source is a quality company you will probably get a personal response back reassuring you that this particular list really is opt in. Keep a file of all these responses so that when you do get named in a Spam complaint you can, as a first step, show this ISP that you have been concerned about acting properly for a long time.

Change 2 - Build Your List Yourself

No tools are safer (or more effective) than opt in lists you build yourself. This is certainly the slowest and most difficult of all methods of marketing but is by far the most rewarding. There is virtually no successful online marketer who does not believe that your personal opt in list isn't the most important asset you have. Why? Because it takes a number of contacts to get most people to buy something online. Selling to people on a first contact, cold call basis is strictly hit and miss.

Change 3 - Become a More Systematic Marketer

Take this time to institute systematic evaluation of all your advertising. There are many tools available to evaluate each mailing you do and each ad you place. Marketers who begin this analysis often find that 50% of their business comes from half the ad sources they use. Cut the dead half and reevaluate regularly. You will find that this will cut the chances that you market to a bad list.

Preparing yourself for this new environment can be an opportunity to make yourself a better marketer while protecting your business from serious disruption. Christopher Greig writes on a variety of marketing topics and helps people develop both active and passive income online at http://character36.com

Spam Filters & Blockers: The Solution To Unsolicited Email?

Spam is a term that, for the vast majority of us, has a very negative connotation. How could it be different when the average Internet user gets over 50 pieces of junk email per day? Moreover, research indicates that by 2006 the average internet user can expect to receive at least 5,000 pieces of spam per year. That sure is a giant amount of spam!

None of us want to waste our time, our bandwidth and our hard drive space to receive spam and then delete it. Because our day-to-day lives are delayed, interrupted and significantly disturbed by this large number of unsolicited email, software manufacturers have developed a number of products especially designed to fight spam. These products might be called spam filters, anti spam filters, e-mail filters, spam blockers and even spam killers. Regardless of the name, their purpose remains the same: to eliminate the spam in your inbox. We have not yet seen a spam filter that achieves 100% accuracy but the latest products launched into the market as well as the newest versions of existing products are proving to be more and more successful.

In case you are wondering specifically what these products do and how they do it, you should know that a spam filter is a program that - web based, server based or installed locally - prevents spam email from being downloaded to your PC. The spam filter itself operates on the basis of rules, which means that the spam fighting program will examine your incoming email and match it against a set of pre-defined criteria. If the email does not match those rules, then it is either: a) Deleted, or b) Quarantined for Review. There are three basic types of traditional anti-spam software:

1) Plug-ins for email clients - These anti spam programs run on your computer and require all received spam to be downloaded before they start sorting it.

2) Standalone applications - These spam blockers also run on your computer and communicate with the email server multiple times each hour to check your POP mailbox for spam and delete it. They constantly run in the background, using up resources and bandwidth.

3) Server-based email spam filters - Many ISPs and email servers (Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc.) have installed email filtering software that scans email for certain triggers, which may include certain phrases, formatting, and aggressive writing styles. A server based spam filter is designed to examine the email being sent to your Internet Service Provider or local area network and to filter it effectively before the email is delivered to you. When this works, it works effectively, however it is not perfect. Unfortunately, many unfair marketers have learned to fool spam filters while a lot of legitimate emails are blocked by them.

Of the spam filters that are on the market at the moment the vast majority of them need to be installed to your hard drive. However, there is a move towards spam filters that do all the work online before the email ever gets to your computer. Most of todays email applications come with a basic spam filter that allows you to block email from specific addresses. Some more complicated email software allows you to configure rules just for that software itself. This can get pretty complex pretty quickly! But people who suffer from tons of spam want a simple solution to their problem - not more headaches. On this note, one of the most popular PC-based spam solutions on the market today is Mailwasher Pro, which has a really nice feature that allows you to send a reply to the spammer that mimics a mailer daemon error message; that is, when the spammer gets this message from you he assumes your email address no longer exists. Simple but effective.

Other well-known spam blockers are iHate Spam, McAfee Spamkiller, Spam Inspector 4.0, Spam Arrest, Qurb, Choicemail One, among others. iHate Spam is an easy-to-use and effective spam filtering solution for Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Incredimail and Hotmail users. McAfee Spamkiller has several innovative features such as protection against Dictionary Attacks (made up names) and foreign language spam, and also supports Outlook, Outlook Express and other popular email programs. Based on personal and global learning networks, Spam Inspector 4.0 adapts itself to your email automatically, filtering out the junk mail with an impressive accuracy.

A particular type of spam filters are the so-called Bayesian spam filters. These are considered intelligent filters, because they are capable of comparing two sets of information and acting on the result. This differentiating feature of Bayesian filters is in direct opposition with the vast majority of other spam filters which use pre-built rules to decide which email is spam and which is not. Bayesian spam filters take one group of legitimate email and another group of spam, and then compare the values and data of each. They look for obvious repeating patterns to form an opinion on something. In spam filter terms that opinion becomes a rule. The definition of legitimate email that they create at the end of this comparison session is what they use going forward to scan your inbox for spam. Yes indeed, these spam filters are capable of learning. For example, if the filter blocked an email because it was perceived as junk, then the user marked it as a valid email, then t!

hey will not to block that type of email in the future. Thus, in time, this type of spam filter learns enough to block spam far more effectively. Some of the Bayesian spam filtering options available today include AOLs Communicator product, Eudora, and Spambully. Although the latter is a fairly new product, it is already making waves in the sea of spam fighting software. Spambully provides an integrated solution for users of both Outlook and Outlook Express, and its creators claim it can remove 99% of spam.

Finally we would like to point out two free spam blockers that provide good filtering capabilities. They are prime examples of Bayesian spam filters and perfect examples that freeware does not necessarily mean low quality. The first of these products is called Popfile and the second one is called Spampal. Both are Windows only software products.

In conclusion, although no spam blocking product can currently guarantee 100% accuracy, one thing is for sure: the more positive, affirmative action you take against spammers by deleting, blocking and/or blacklisting them, the less spam you will receive. Spam filters and spam blockers can really help us along the fierce battle against spam. The more action we take, the smaller the spam problem will become. Wouldnt that make us happier?

If you want to learn more about this and other related topics, check out www.Anti-Spam-League.org. This organization offers free membership and the chance to access a wide amount of relevant information on privacy, spam, email abuse, Internet fraud, responsible marketing and several other topics.

The purpose of the Anti SPAM League is to help consumers and business owners reduce the amount of SPAM they receive. In addition, our Anti SPAM organization believes that educating site owners in the area of SPAM prevention and ways to successfully and responsibly market their sites, is key in making a difference.

mike@anti-spam-league.org