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What Can I Do?
Dealing with the after effect of spam does not have to be like pulling teeth. It can be easier than that. Of course it helps to know some of the easiest ways to keep spam from ruining your online experience.
Sometimes you can receive so many spams a day that you could spend more of your time deleting these annoyances than responding to your legitimate emails. By the time you have finished messing around with your emails, you could be far too frustrated to be bothered with anything else. However, there are some things that you can do to make your online experience a little bit easier. There is some ways to keep spam from ruining your day. Here is a list of some of those things.
Email Filters
Filters are a very effective way of managing or getting rid of unwanted emails, but sometimes they can work too good. While they can work very hard to keep your inbox from receiving spam, they can also prevent you getting a lot of your wanted emails as well.
Some of the worst filter based systems for blocking spam are provided by your very own ISP. This can be a big problem because these types of filters do not let you control which emails that you can let through.
Basically, these filters search for common key words and phrases like Guaranteed, free, and so on. Once these systems pick up on those key words, it will automatically prevent those senders from sending you emails again. That can be very annoying if such a keyword is used by a friend or family member to describe the reason they are emailing you in the first place.
If you would prefer to use this type of method for spam prevention, let me suggest that you get the type of filter that allows YOU to control what content is allowed and what should be deleted. Here is a link on this very subject: http://www.spamarrest.com
*Special Note: Dont be fooled by the Smarter Filters that are coming on the market because while they do get smarter over time and work particularly well at preventing spam, they are extremely difficult for the average internet user to set up and use regularly. So if you not particularly tech-savvy, you should shy away from these systems.
Paid Email
Forcing people to pay for every email they send would certainly put an end to spam, but it would likely put an end to anybody sending emails as well. The entire reason why most of use emails is because it is a free service. That is the reason that it is so popular in the first place.
Spammers would find that paying for the right to harass you through your inbox would definitely be a good reason to stop bothering. However, it would also prevent the average user from sending emails as well.
Of course, it is inevitable that even if an internet company decided to charge you one half of one cent to send an email, eventually spammers would find a way to get around that as well. It is the very technology. As honest people continuously search for their online privacy; as lawmen continue to find new ways to prevent spam; so do spammers continuously find methods of beating the system.
Basically in most of our efforts to prevent these spammers, we are accomplishing one indefinite feat. We are making these people smarter. They get smarter with every effort that we make to make their irritating use of emails illegal. It is a very big waste of time.
National No-Spam Directories
These work basically the same as the National tele-marketing laws do. There is no such thing that works for the internet yet, but this is the way it would basically be if there was such a law in existence.
You would have to call a special number or go to a web link, and place your email address in a no call area. This would mean that if any company wanted to send you spam, it would be completely illegal, and they would be susceptible to criminal charges.
At this moment in time, this type of law does not currently exist. It is a difficult law to pass since it basically infringes on a great many rights of the spammers. Yes it does stink that they have rights also. If you would like more information on spam laws check out this link. http://www.spamlaws.com
Complaining to Spammers ISP
Complaining to a spammers ISP is another route that you might take, but it utterly useless. As there are no laws as of yet to prevent them from sending you spam, there is little that you do about receiving them. At least as far as it concerns the ISP.
These days spammers are smarter than your average surfer. All ISPs can really do is threaten to shut them down. That is not a permanent solution because spammers just learn to use different methods to get their emails out. They can do any of the following:
Change their e-mails return address.
Change their title and/or user name
Use multiple credit cards
Use various forms of different identification
Basically, if you learned anything from this area, it must have been that complaining is really a waste of time because spammers have far too many ideas on how to avoid ISP interference for the ISPs to have any affect at all. In the end, the best things that you can do for yourself is to try and follow some of the easy techniques listed below for some pretty good tips on avoiding annoying spam in your inbox.
Challenge Response Filtering
This is a really cool and easy method to use for dealing with spam. What this does, is forces anybody that you have not already cleared to email you to fill out a short form or click a special link in order for their email to go through.
It also lets you create a safe list. This is just a list of people that can send you emails without making them fill out the form first. Again the link for this can be found at http://www.spamarrest.com
The purpose of using this type of system for keeping spam away is that it is pretty rare for one of these companies to take all of that time just to send one person an email. Of course there is always the chance that some spammer that is in desperate need for a life might just do that.
On the off chance that one of the spammers does manage to take the time to fill out this report, you can simply get rid of them by taking them off of your safe list or just deleting and blocking them permanently from your computer.
Some of the better washers will hold many of the challenged emails in a pending folder and let you decide yourself which ones to clear through to your inbox. All this means is for those people that take the time to fill out the form or click on the link, they are still sent to a maybe box. This lets you decide manually which to keep and which emails to get rid of and block. In a way, its one of the best methods out there right now.
Mail Washers
This method is an extremely effective way of dealing with spam. What it does is it lets you check and/or scan your emails before they even reach your inbox. This is a rather cool way to deal with unwanted spam.
If you can combine this method with a challenge response system, you can ensure that your inbox remains 100% free of spam and email viruses. Really, isnt that why you are reading this guide in the first place? |
