Spam Anyone?

Just a generation (or two) ago if anyone said Spam, a small, blue, tin can with some strange looking meat in it would come to mind. Today, spam has taken on a whole new meaning - Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE) or junk e-mail. Both cause many to cringe.

So what can we do to stop the influx of e-mail that promises fame, fortune and larger body parts? If you have a web site, there are a few things you can do right on your web pages that can reduce spam. The first would be NOT to post your e-mail address on your site (or on message boards, in guestbooks or newsgroups). Sounds extreme but spammers often use programs that "harvest" e-mail addresses from web pages. Think of it as a spider or a bot that seeks out posted e-mail addresses.

How will my visitors contact me?

You can use an e-mail form or a guestbook which will allow your visitors to leave a message.

You can place your e-mail address on your site and dodge the harvesters in one of two ways. The first is by placing your e-mail address on your page, but do not link to it. Visitors will have to cut and paste your e-mail address, but the harvesters are looking for the HTML code that goes along with an e-mail address - the <a href="mailto:.....> code. If you don't link to your e-mail address, no "mailto" code is generated.

If you want your e-mail address to be a clickable link, place the words 'nospam' in front of your e-mail address. You would also include a message to your visitors telling them to delete the words nospam before sending the e-mail. So your e-mail address may look like this on your site:

E-mail me at nospamrobyn@momtomomchat.com
Please delete the words nospam, before sending the e-mail.

A harvester would read the e-mail address as nospamrobyn@momtomomchat.com, which in reality does not exist. Not very professional looking, but it works.

You could also sign up for an obscure e-mail address that starts with a letter later in the alphabet. Spam attacks often run alphabetically and can get cut off midstream when an ISP notices the attack. This may explain why I get 20 - 70 spams a day in my mail box that starts with the letter "b" and none in my mail box that starts with the letter "y".

Share your address carefully. Be sure to read the fine print in the privacy policies of any website that asks you for your e-mail address during the registration process. Be skeptical and use your judgement.

Software can fight against spam as well. All major e-mail programs have some sort of filter built in. Some e-mail services, such as Hotmail and Yahoo! offer spam filtering by sending suspected spam to a "bulk" mail folder. If all of these options aren't enough, there are products you can buy that do a number of things, such as masking your e-mail address and filtering out known spammers.

What about the spam that makes it to your inbox? There are several things to do and NOT to do with spam. One is never, ever respond to it. Even if you are given 'opt-out' instructions, responding to junk e-mail only tells the spammer that your e-mail address is alive and kicking. The spam will only get worse.

Turn the spammers in to the originating ISP. Find the ISP's address for reporting abuse (usually abuse@theirname.com) and forward the entire message to them. This may or may not help however as spammers can forge the headers of these e-mails to make it look like it came from a certain ISP. I turned in several e-mails to Yahoo! and half of them were forged.

You could also forward your mail to the Spam Recycling Center (http://www.spamrecycle.com/ ) who will forward your spam to the appropriate federal agencies.

For more information on spam (the e-mail kind, not the meat):

CAUCE - http://www.cauce.org/index.phtml
FREE - http://www.spamfree.org/
Junkbusters - http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/junkemail.html
Spam Con Foundation - http://law.spamcon.org/

By Robyn M. Harper, a married WAHM of two, owner of RMH Web Design, and partner of Mom To Mom Chat.com. Contact Robyn anytime at robyn@momtomomchat.com.