A. Spam is any unwanted, unsolicited or undesirable 'junk' email. Spam is often used to sell products or services, distribute viruses, or to search for
valid email addresses or collect personal information (called 'phishing'). Spam is usually sent in massive volume by individuals known as 'spammers' in hopes that
they will get a response to at least a few of their emails. Spammers can send out thousands or even millions of spam emails in hopes of getting just a few responses.
At the end of 2004, estimates said that about 70% of all email is spam.
Most spammers use an automated technique that allows them to send bulk email automatically.
Q. Why did I get spam?
A. There are many ways that spammers find your email address. The most common are:
Once a spammer knows a website domain (mysite.com) they can guess at email addresses on that domain. Example: me@mysite.com.
Using programs that automatically search the internet, spammers can find email addresses that appear on websites.
Websites that request your email address to sign up for some kind of service or newsletter. Some sites sell their client lists to spammers.
Q. How can I protect myself from spam?
A. There are some very important things you can do that will help prevent you from getting spam. Be aware however, that once the spammers have your address,
there is very little you can do other than use some form of anti-spam software. Here are some tips:
Chose an email address that is difficult to guess. Like one that has numbers in it.
Do not put your email address on your website.
Do not submit your email address to websites for ANY reason. Setup a second email address for this purpose from one of the free email providers like Yahoo, Hotmail or Canada.com.
Never reply to spam. Often the instructions for removing yourself from a mailing list, will merely confirm to the spammer that your email address is valid, and you might get more spam.
Read your email in plain text mode, not HTML mode. This will prevent the spammer from tracking whether you have opened a message.
Be very selective about who you give your email address to, protect your privacy by ensuring that only the people you choose know your email address.
Demand and support government legislation against spamming.
Important: Most spam is sent from innocent people's computers and they don't even know it. A computer virus can use your computer to send out spam while you go about your normal business. A big part of stopping spam is
making sure that you aren't part of the problem! Always keep your virus-scan and anti-adware/spyware programs up-to-date and do regular scans. Check out our list of useful FREE programs that can help you with this.
Q. Why doesn't my ISP or email provider protect me from spam?
A. Most email providers and ISPs have spam filtering systems on their servers. However, this software cannot always tell if a message is spam. Spammers are
getting more and more creative in making spam that seems like it is just a normal email.
What's the big deal? Is spam dangerous?
A. Spam can be very dangerous. It can contain viruses that infect and take over your computer. It can attempt to gather personal information including bank accounts,
credit card numbers and various passwords. Spam can clog your inbox until you have more junk mail than legitimate mail. It can also contain offensive material. Large
volumes of spam can bog down mail servers and make email services slower or even cause them to crash. ALWAYS delete spam as soon as you discover it. Don't open
it and especially, NEVER open any attachments for any reason.
