Protect your Email Address

What can you do to prevent spam in your inbox? You can prevent it but once it starts, its hard to stop.

Spam email messages are unwanted email in your email inbox. The “ham” is the good mail that you want to read. Spam email is similar to the junk mail that you have certainly received at in your postal mailbox. Some people get hundreds of unwanted spam email messages in their inbox every day. This makes it extremely difficult to locate the good email that you really want. Sorting through that spam email is very frustrating and can be a huge waste of time. Some of the spam can be downright disgusting.

Have you ever wondered why it is that some people receive hundreds of spam messages each day while others receive none? If you think back to your home mail box and the junk mail you will find the answer. People receive spam for primarily one reason- they gave out their email address to some person or some business. Maybe they signed up for a newsletter, ordered a gift, requested an electronic greeting card, or got a login at a website. All of these are the most probable way to receive that spam. Just like your home mailbox where you signed up for a catalog and now receive 25 catalogs that you didn’t sign up for, spam email arrives in the same way. So, you must protect that valuable asset- your email address. By not giving out your email address you are protecting the yourself from spam and preventing yourself from having to dig through it.

But what if you want that newsletter? My advice is to get one email address for newsletters and online accounts. Get a web-based email account through hotmail or yahoo for all personal purchases, accounts, gifts orders, or newsletters. For other more critical email, get a different email account.

How do you get rid of the spam once you begin? The answer is- you don’t. No matter how computer savvy you are, you can’t stop that spam from coming. The “unsubscribe” button at the bottom doesn’t work on real spam- even though the US Government made it a law that it had to. The only thing we can do is to use a spam filter and filter that spam out of your mailbox. However, there is always the chance that the “ham” (the good mail) will also be caught in the spam filter. Inevitably, this means that you have to look through a spam report each day to aid you in preventing your good mail from being lost.

Just like you can usually get rid of your junk mail in your mailbox at home by moving, you can also get rid of spam by changing your email address. However, some people have had that email address for many years and just don’t want to give it up.