Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam!

When Monty Python first sang that song, little did they know that their humorous ditty would inspire the name of the most prolific scourge of the early 21st century. But Spam, originally known as an inexpensive luncheon meat has become synonymous with  electronic junk mail. It carries messages of impotence cures, sure-fire diets as well as messages from far away royalty who need the help of an ordinary honest person to unlock their wealth.

When I started working, email hadn't caught on yet. Oh, how I miss the days when I was an outcast because I had an email address. At work we thought we were advanced because we could send email to other offices. Of course we only had one networked computer that could do email and it was at the end of the hall. But, that was OK since if we received one email a week, that was a lot. Then the internet came and businesses figured out how to exploit this new tool. Unfortunately so did the cheap businesses as well as the criminals.

As a business owner, I am opposed to spamming and I have to apologize that I did notice an ad on this very page for an email marketing company. Well, at least this time, they're paying me for the intrusion and you dear reader, well you get to read this column. :-)   OK, so it's not a fair trade but let's get back to the subject at hand, how can you avoid spam?

Don't Give Out Your Email Address
Simple enough, right? Problem solved, Good night everyone!

OK, it's not quite that simple, if you don't give out your email address, what's the point in having it? But, that doesn't mean you can't be selective in who gets your address. I've been around a while, I have many email addresses. But for the average person I suggest having at least three. Yes, that's right and with the price of email addresses costing $0, what do you have to loose?

Your ISP probably offers you one however, I don't recommend using them because what happens if you move to another area or change providers, then you have to scramble to give all your friends your new address. That's why I recommend getting an email address from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Netzero or 100's of other places that offer free email addresses. Most of them are advertiser driven so you'll want to pick one that's not too obnoxious about the ads. Personally I like Microsoft Hotmail and Google GMail because I found their spam filters were very effective.

The first email address is your primary address. That is the one you use most often, it has your most comfortable interface and the one that you will guard the most. That means only giving this to your best friends and trusted family members and when you provide it, let them know that they are getting your direct email and not to share it with anyone, for any reason. Especially not to include this address on any joke emails that they're going to share with 100 of the best friends. So, guard this email like the jewel that it is.

The second email is your public email. This is the one you will be more generous with. So, you can use this for your more trusted relationships. For example, email alerts from your bank, mailing lists that you want to hear from (like update notices from that Long Island Life Blog), basically where you're fairly certain your information will not be shared but, just in case.

The third email account is your Spam account. This is for entering that bogus contest at the local MiniMart or if your taking a walk on the scary side of the web and signing into a website that you're not too sure about. For my spam account, I check it at lease once a month, to clean it out. Most free email services will require you to check in from time to time to make sure the account doesn't go dormant. Check your the terms of each service you use for the specifics as to how often you need to check in.

There are a few more strategies that you can use. One is if you purchase a domain name, most registrars will give you an email address or two as well as a few forwarding addresses. My favorite registrar is GoDaddy (http://www.godaddy.com)  because when you purchase a domain you get one full email account plus 100 forwarding email addresses. A forwarding email address is an alias address that forwards to another email. Small businesses use this to make them look much bigger than they are. The customer will see a dozen email addresses for everyone from the Janitor to the President. Little do they know that they all funnel to the same Hotmail address.

As the owner of the domain you can create an email address for each mailing list you join. So, you can have one address as bank@mydomain.com for your bank, facebook@mydomain.com for your Facebook account etc. This way if one of your addresses leak to a spammer, you know who sold out your address. Then you can rectify it easily, just cancel that address.

Finally, there is one more email service which I recommend for use when you are sure your email is going to be spammed. Maybe you're signing up for a contest or someone just keeps bugging you for an email and you really do not want to hear from them, EVER. Making sure that you are not going to receive any personal information you can use Mailinator (http://www.mailinator.com/). You can create a disposable email address on the spot like forgetme@mailinator.com or nobodyhome@binkmail.com or who@suremail.info. As long as you use one of their domains in the address, you can create any name and Mailinator will receive the email and hold it for a few hours. You can view what comes in from their website. There is no need to sign up or sign on. There is no password. So, have caution in your use of this tool because anyone with the address, can access the email.

So, we've I think we've covered Spam with enough mustard for today. I can't stress the point to be diligent with your email address because once it gets out, there's no way to put it back in. Even cancelling an email address for a while does not help. I shut down one of my emails that got spammed for three years. I figured toreinstate it at one point but, the spam started filling my box instantly. The internet never forgets.

Next up on the blog, I'll finally get to that rant about the ever increasing school tax on Long Island. I'll get my soapbox ready!