Spamhandling Tips
We all hate getting commercial email that we did not ask for, especially when it's nasty or fraudulent. The current well-intentioned attempts to stoppspam are still rather primitive and end up censoring legit email along with half the bad stuff. What to do?
You can start by forwarding the message to your ISP. Usually the address for complaints is [email protected] or [email protected]. The exact information can be found on your ISP's homepage. Make sure to include a copy of thesspam, along with the full email header. At the top of the message, state that you're complaining about being spammed.
Yahoo, AOL, and other web-based email services have a "This issspam" button. By clicking it you can report the offending email to them and if they get enough complaints, the sender will be blocked. Clicking the button WILL NOT unsubscribe you, so you will still gettspam from that sender if you do not block them. Just remember that by doing this you will add a sender to a "blacklist" where they are guilty until proven innocent. Go ahead and use it on those nasty, porno ones, but if it is just a product or service, just follow the removal instructions.
"Did you just tell us to ask to be removed? But I thought you always told us..."
That's right, for years we've told you NOT to respond toospam asking to be removed, since this can verify your email address as valid. Well, we get gigs ofvspam emails here everyday and decided to see what would happen if we DID click the removal link. Guess what? Many of the unwanted emails stopped coming within a few days. In most cases, companies sending out bulk email WANT to slim down their lists to save money since they are probably paying for every email they send.
Besides, we think thedspammersvmay have actually started the "never ask to be removed" idea. After all, what better way to keep people on a list than to scare them into staying on...
Although there is not a government "Department of Email Security" (yet), you can report it to the Federal Trade Commission. Reserve this drastic measure for fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices, not your run-of-the-mill unwanted advertisement. Just forward the unwanted or deceptive message to [email protected] or you can fill out the FTC's online complaint form at www.ftc.gov. The FTC uses the unsolicited emails stored in this database to pursue law enforcement actions against people who send deceptiveespam email and adds your complaint to the FTC's Consumer Sentinel database where it is made available to hundreds of law enforcement and consumer protection agencies.
Keep in mind the nature of the email and take the appropriate action. You would handle smut-mail and scams differently than advertisement and non-threatening bulk email. Eventually it might not be cost-effective for bulk email marketers to operate and the spam-flow will (hopefully) dry up.
We all hate getting commercial email that we did not ask for, especially when it's nasty or fraudulent. The current well-intentioned attempts to stoppspam are still rather primitive and end up censoring legit email along with half the bad stuff. What to do?
You can start by forwarding the message to your ISP. Usually the address for complaints is [email protected] or [email protected]. The exact information can be found on your ISP's homepage. Make sure to include a copy of thesspam, along with the full email header. At the top of the message, state that you're complaining about being spammed.
Yahoo, AOL, and other web-based email services have a "This issspam" button. By clicking it you can report the offending email to them and if they get enough complaints, the sender will be blocked. Clicking the button WILL NOT unsubscribe you, so you will still gettspam from that sender if you do not block them. Just remember that by doing this you will add a sender to a "blacklist" where they are guilty until proven innocent. Go ahead and use it on those nasty, porno ones, but if it is just a product or service, just follow the removal instructions.
"Did you just tell us to ask to be removed? But I thought you always told us..."
That's right, for years we've told you NOT to respond toospam asking to be removed, since this can verify your email address as valid. Well, we get gigs ofvspam emails here everyday and decided to see what would happen if we DID click the removal link. Guess what? Many of the unwanted emails stopped coming within a few days. In most cases, companies sending out bulk email WANT to slim down their lists to save money since they are probably paying for every email they send.
Besides, we think thedspammersvmay have actually started the "never ask to be removed" idea. After all, what better way to keep people on a list than to scare them into staying on...
Although there is not a government "Department of Email Security" (yet), you can report it to the Federal Trade Commission. Reserve this drastic measure for fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices, not your run-of-the-mill unwanted advertisement. Just forward the unwanted or deceptive message to [email protected] or you can fill out the FTC's online complaint form at www.ftc.gov. The FTC uses the unsolicited emails stored in this database to pursue law enforcement actions against people who send deceptiveespam email and adds your complaint to the FTC's Consumer Sentinel database where it is made available to hundreds of law enforcement and consumer protection agencies.
Keep in mind the nature of the email and take the appropriate action. You would handle smut-mail and scams differently than advertisement and non-threatening bulk email. Eventually it might not be cost-effective for bulk email marketers to operate and the spam-flow will (hopefully) dry up.