Thursday, July 19, 2007
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Sick of getting spam, here's a few things to try.

  • If you run your own domain, turn off your settings to allow *@domain.com email to go to a single box.
  • Remove text that contains your email address on your site, and consider changing it to be "user at domain dot com".
  • Consider creating a windows live or Gmail account to use for sites that require registration. Once you've determined if they are trustworthy, change it to your 'good' email address.
  • Double spam filter your email. The email from my site goes through my ISP's spam filters, and then Gmail picks it up from my inbox there, sure, it's a few extra minutes to get my mail, but then it goes through Gmail's spam checks. I think I get maybe one to two spam messages in my inbox per week. This also allows me to have a single point of presence for all of my mail, not to mention the hard disk space I'm saving by using Google 2.8 GB of online storage. I've set it up this way for close to six months, and I've only hit 5% of their allotted storage space.
  • If you are getting a lot of spam from reliable companies, unsubscribe from their notices, they have to provide a way for you to opt out of their requests. Be careful though, a lot of spammers use this feature to fish for email addresses, so while it's ok to tell Macy's or Nordstrom to stop sending you junk, I'd be weary of BigOffers.com.
  • Use Gmail's Report Spam feature in the web based email.
  • If you're using Outlook, use it's built in Spam filter capabilities.
  • Only give your email address to people you want to receive email from.
  • Spammers use name lists to guess at common windows live, yahoo, and gmail accounts, when possible, add something that won't allow your name to be 'guessed' (jsmith89@gmail.com) . It's kind of cryptic, but yet another effective preventive measure.
  • If you're getting more spam than good email, it might be time to retire that address and start clean.
  • Don't get caught by a phisher either.
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