How to fight against spam

The best way to fight against spam is to avoid being its target. The following is a list of the actions most often targeted by spam:

·         Sending messages to news groups.

·         Giving your email address in an online shop.

·         Subscribing to an Internet service which requests an email.

·         Sending an email requesting to unsubscribe from a spam distribution list because unfortunately, this is almost exclusively used to confirm the validity of the new email.

·         Subscribe to or participate in a mail distribution list.

·         Online conversation in chats.

·         Including email addresses in web page HTML code which are automatically extracted by robots who are searching for coding chains using the @ sign

Furthermore, spammers may buy mailing lists whose senders have not approved the receipt of promotional messages. This kind of practice seriously damages the reputations of companies that carry out online marketing campaigns without the permission of the addressee. At present, users can opt to be included (opt-in) in permission marketing programs, i.e. they give express authorization to receive promotional mail or choose to be excluded from all types of advertising campaigns (opt-out) through Robinson lists, for example. Another mechanism traditionally used by spammers is to randomly generate email aliases using common words and names such as support, sales or david. Afterwards, these aliases are combined with domains registered in the NIC in order to obtain valid email addresses. The next step involves checking which of the thousands of generated addresses are valid. The most advanced spammers attach links to tiny images in their web pages which are almost impossible to detect at first sight. When addressees download and examine the HTML content of their mail, their mail client then requests the image from the server, which generates an automatic process of email address validation in the data abase targeted by the spam.

Everyone can start fighting against the spam that invades work centers and personal email accounts by strictly applying the following rules:

·         Never reply under any circumstances to an unwanted email.

·         Do not acquire any products from promotions advertised by this kind of mail. This will discourage spammers from sending any more mails, since their aim is to use this to achieve economic benefits. According to ComputerWorld, one out of every 400 promotional spam recipients ends up purchasing the product or service advertised.

·         Do not get taken in by requests or chain mails. This kind of mail bombardment is spam and spammers subsequently use the list of addresses which appears in these chains.

·         Do not launch an electronic attack on the spammer’s email account because the address that appears in this type of mail has probably been stolen or does not even exist.