- What is SPAM and why do I get it?
SPAM is a growing problem everyday. Any unsolicited e-mail that you don’t want is considered to be SPAM. The people who send SPAM mail have a wide variety of ways to get your information. Creating “mailto” links on a website with your e-mail address is one way. Using your e-mail address when making an online purchase, or any other online business is another way to get SPAM. Also, entering your e-mail address on newsgroups is probably the best way to end up getting lots of SPAM mail.
- How can I avoid SPAM in the future?
Avoiding SPAM completely is not a very realistic possibility these days. The best way to limit SPAM is to open an e-mail account strictly for doing online business. Hotmail and Yahoo are two major companies that provide free e-mail accounts. Then, whenever you need to do any of the things described above, you can use this e-mail address. Don’t tell anyone that you correspond with about this e-mail address, so you don’t get any wanted e-mails at this address. Then you can just login to this account to do your online business and to temporarily clean out the mailbox.
- Is there software available to help filter SPAM?
Yes. There are lots of different applications that work to varying degrees. Two popular choices are Thunderbird and Network Associates McAfee SpamKiller.