Slam spam: Tips to keep your e-mail spam-free

Never has there been a four-letter word that can cause us so much online grief as spam.

It is a recurring nuisance that plagues millions of e-mails around the world. It wastes time, bandwidth and valuable inbox space. It is sometimes harmless, oftentimes rude and at all times annoying. And, it gives the iconic processed meat brand a bad name.

While we are spared from the inefficiencies of snail mail, spam has become the Internet generation’s yoke to bear. How many times have our e-mails been flooded with unsolicited e-mails peddling quick-rich schemes, quasi-legal services, dubious virility drugs and offensive adult content from people we don’t know? We go through the motions of checking and deleting our junk mail, only to receive more the next day.

These obnoxious e- mails are indiscriminately sent by spammers, a majority of which are companies whose business is to send out e-mails for their customers. Spammers don’t care if you want to receive their messages or not. They just want to reach your inbox no matter what the cost.

Hide and seek

Spammers are a smart and efficient set. Usually, they employ various programs that hunt chat rooms and forums for mailing lists, and scour websites and blogs for e-mail addresses they can copy. Once they have a sizeable collection of e-mail addresses, all they have to do is send using forged e-mail headers and fake sender names, making it virtually impossible for you to locate where the message came from. So if you’re being flooded by spam, chances are the spammers got to your e-mail address from one of the cyber places you left it.

For its part, leading broadband service provider PLDT myDSL is working hard to ensure that subscriber information remains private. "PLDT myDSL does not give away its e-mail addresses to spammers. We fully respect the privacy of our subscribers. PLDT will only occasionally send e-mail broadcasts to all of our subscribers to announce new product offerings, but that’s it," says Carlos Concio, PLDT senior product manager for retail data services.

The Internet is a virtual smorgasbord for spammers and everybody is fair game, no matter what Internet service provider you subscribe to. This has been an ongoing concern among ISPs who often take the brunt of complaints among subscribers for all the junk littering their e-mail. While some ISPs use special programs to address spam, the effects can be inconsistent especially when used on such a massive scale. Occasionally, spam still gets through and some legitimate e-mails mistaken for spam automatically get marked and deleted.

According to PLDT myDSL, the subscriber is still in the best and most powerful position to control spam. All he needs is the right information to bring spam control into action.

"PLDT myDSL is currently working to educate our subscribers about spam. Probably 80 percent of the time, they receive spam because they gave away their e-mail addresses to some public websites. Subscribers must learn to treat their e-mails as private information and not give it away lightly," says Concio.

Protect and control

PLDT myDSL recommends ways to help protect and control the spam onslaught terrorizing your e-mail. Hopefully, these tips will help you become more vigilant in policing your own privacy to ensure that nobody can take advantage of your e-mail.

• Never post your real e-mail address on forums, websites and bulletin boards. It’s like serving your e-mail address to spammers on a silver platter.

• If you regularly sign up for Web services and online features that require your e-mail address, then set up a separate e-mail address solely for this purpose. Expect that e-mail to be deluged by spam but at least, you can keep your personal or business e-mail spam-free.

• When you register with an Internet site, make sure you do not give them the right to sell your e-mail address to their partners which can masquerade as spammers. Watch out for automatically checked tick boxes and read the text carefully before you click "I Agree" to their conditions.

• Never ever click any link that invites you to unsubscribe. This is a scam telling spammers that the e-mail address they sent this message to is still active – a cue for them to send more spam.

• If the e-mail header or sender looks suspicious, don’t bother opening it. These e-mail messages might contain tiny graphics that, when viewed, launch a program that registers back at the spammers, confirming yet another live e-mail address.

• Quit sending and replying to chain e-mails. While they offer funny, uplifting, at times tragic, and even ominous messages, some are actually disguised programs used by spammers to collect e-mail addresses. So don’t fall for threats of bad luck or promises of free cellphones and gazillions of dollars. The most you’ll get is an inbox full of spam that you never saw coming.

• Be wary of spoof e-mails asking for your password, credit card number or other personal data. They might look like they come from Yahoo, Hotmail, Microsoft or other reputable establishments but they are just spammers fishing for information.

• Filter your e-mails. One of the most powerful ways to address your current spam problem is by setting the filter in your e-mail client to reject messages containing obvious catchphrases utilized by spammers. Free e-mail clients like Yahoo and Hotmail come with filters and intelligent spam control systems. Outlook Express and similar e-mail clients are also equipped with filters that allow you to block incoming and delete present spam.

• Fight spam with software. If your e-mail is already infested with spam, try using a program developed specifically to seek, delete and block spam. Programs like McAfee SpamKiller, Norton Anti-Spam, Qurb and SpamCatcher will do the trick.