Archive for the 'Tips' Category
Spam Prevention Tips #1
In the first of this 10 part series, we will be providing some advice about how to prevent your email address getting into the hands of spammers. Prevention is better than cure so it’s always a good idea to practice safe browsing online and get into some good habits early on to safeguard your privacy and identity online.
Now we all like to receive a few funnies in our inbox from time to time. Photos, jokes, funny video clips or hilarious song mashups and even the odd good luck charm to give you a lift on a dull Friday afternoon. But did you know that forwarding these messages onto everyone in your address book is one of the best ways to guarantee your email address ends up on spam lists? Yes, it’s true.
The fact is that no amazing good luck will happen to you by sending that message to 15 people you love within the next 5 minutes, no matter how convincing the sender makes it sound, and don’t believe their promises that it happened to them. Yeah right! You are not going to win a free iPod by sending that viral marketing email to everybody you know who listens to music. This one is excellent actually because, who do you know that doesn’t listen to music? That email petition going around is not going to prove or change a single god dam thing! In fact, email petitions are probably the worst type of spam gathering email you can get yourself involved in (more on this later). And for the last time, it does not take guts to say Jesus! See, I just said it!
The sole purpose of these messages is to get you to send them on to everybody in your address book so that eventually, this huge great list of live and valid email addresses ends up with the spammers. Luckily, there is a way you can keep yourself and your friends out of most of these email spam traps – except for the email petition which, as mentioned before, is particularly nasty. If you really do feel compelled beyond rational rhyme or reason to forward that message on to everybody you know, then instead of adding all their names in the TO box, add them to the BCC box instead.
BCC means Blind Carbon Copy and what it does is hide the names and email addresses of everybody who is in that box. So you can forward your latest antivirus alert hoax onto all 200+ of your eager contacts safe in the knowledge that not only will they take immediate responsive action by promptly deleting your message for wasting their time, but also that they won’t secretly chastise you for exposing their email address to spam! Now, when you’ve added all your friends’ email addresses to the BCC box, just add your own in the TO box before clicking Send, as some email programmes don’t like to send messages without at least one address in the TO box. They think it looks like spam.
All well and good, but this advice doesn’t work with email petitions because people filling these out actually type their names and email addresses into the main part of the email message, known as the email body. Imagine how thankful spammers are when such messages, full of several thousands of self annotated email addresses, land in their inboxes. It’s Christmas come early. If the cause for which you’re petitioning is a just and worthy one, no doubt they will have a web site where you can go to sign their online petition or contribute in some other way. These online petitions will generally have safeguards to protect your identity and email address from being abused.
So the lesson learned today? Use the BCC field to send or forward jokes and amusing, non important stuff to your friends and contacts, if you really have to send them at all. They’ll thank you for it.
To put this into practice, why not send this article to your friends using the BCC field now. Let’s start to pread the word.
