Spam
Here are a few hints that I've learned over the years to avoid spam. You can't avoid it altogether; but, at the bottom of this page, you'll see my results of following these few simple rules.
"Mail this to a friend"
This is a popular phrase. You'll see it at the bottom of lots of websites nowadays. Sometimes you fill out a form giving your friend's email address and then yours so he'll know it's coming from you, of course.
DON'T DO IT!
They are harvesting email addresses so they can sell them to a spammer - usually. This is not always the case; but it is most of the time.
If you want to send that link to your friend, just go up to the address bar and click once. It will turn blue (highlighted). Then, all you have to do is copy and paste it into an email to your friend. How much more simple could it get. And you don't jeopardize either your friend or yourself to spammers.
Forwarding Jokes, etc.
This is a good way to increase your spam level - AND the level of your friends' spam.
DON'T DO IT!
One of the ways spammers get email addresses is by "harvesting". They have programs ( the same as Google, Yahoo, Ask, and many others ), which search the internet constantly looking for email addresses. It's not complicated; all they have to do is look for that @ sign. When they find a bunch of them, they jump in like a flock of seagulls and capture them. Once they get it, they'll rarely let it go. They add your list to their massive list, and now everybody on that list is gonna get lot's of spam. Not only that, they'll trade lists among non-competitors. If you're not selling the same thing as I am, then no problem: why not swap lists.
Sending Greeting Cards
This is a really cute trick and sometimes it's hard to resist. You see a cute greeting, it makes you think of someone, and you send it to them.
DON'T DO IT!
What you are basically doing is sending them your address and your friend's address. Sure, they send the card. That's why they developed this scheme. But now they have 2 addresses. You'll notice that it always says somewhere on that cute little card, "Would you like to send this to someone you know?" Yeh, right! Bite on that one and now they have another address. What do you think they are going to do with all these addresses? Do you think they started that whole website for the fun of it? No!
HINT
We all hate "spam".
One of the origins of "spam" is signing up to get something
"free". We all love "free". My answer to this is to
have one of those "free" email accounts that is disposable. The
only thing you use it for is something you don't care about. You don't
give it to your friends or relatives; you simply keep it handy for situations
where you want to sign up for something and you suspect that they
"might" sell your email address to someone else. If they do, and
the "spam" gets too much for you, just close the account (or ignore
it) and open another one.
I use http://www.hotmail.com
for this purpose. The only catch is that you have to check in once a month
for your email or you will lose it. There are others that I haven't tried.
I believe you can do the same with http://www.yahoo.com
as well.
One other little hint. If I'm not sure, I use this address in the
beginning. Then, after a reasonable period of time, if I'm not getting any
spam as a result, I will change the address, with that particular entity, to my
normal address. It's a good idea to keep track of these. I have a
Notepad file on my computer showing all the places where I have an ID and a
password. That has the additional benefit that, if anyone ever steals my
computer, they won't have any trouble using some of those exotic websites.
THE PROOF
I just checked both my accounts. The junk file goes back 16 days in both cases. My regular account has 6 spams. The Hotmail has 109. That is fairly representative.
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