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Spam? What is it and why should I care? Millions and millions of people receive spam everyday in their email boxes. It wastes people's time and energy as well as cluttering up the internet with useless nonsense that nobody will ever want. |
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| What's The Deal With Spam? | How Did I Get It? | |||
| Spam comes in many different forms. The biggest problem is probably email spamming. Spamming is defined as the use of any electronic communications medium to send unsolicited messages in bulk. Spammers have developed a variety of spamming techniques, which vary by media: e-mail spam, instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engines spam, weblogs spam, and mobile phone messaging spam. Each causes problems in their respective medium. What most people will experience more often than not is email spam. Get rich schemes, sexual enhancement products and other useless commercial advertising are common among spam recipients. Spam's direct effects include the consumption of computer and network resources, and the cost in human time and attention of getting rid of unwanted messages. In addition, spam has costs stemming from the kinds of spam messages sent, from the ways spammers send them, and from the arms race between spammers and those who try to stop or control spam. Many users are bothered by spam because it impinges upon the amount of time they spend reading their e-mail. Many also find the content of spam frequently offensive, in that pornography is one of the most frequently advertised products. |
How do you eliminate spam? The only way is to start over. Yes, start completely over. Have you ever heard that nothing in life is free? Well, it's true. Free credit report? Free screensaver? Free gifts? Without a doubt most people have seen these advertised all over the internet. In order to receive these "free" things you usually have to sign up with your email address. These companies then turn around and sell your email address to other companies, then the spam begins! You see, once your email address gets on an email list it gets sold to many different companies over and over again, for a profit. No matter how much you try it is just about impossible to remove yourself from all the lists. Some companies will ignore your request (which is illegal in the U.S.). Some companies will only remove you from one list while they continue to send you mail from their other lists that they own. Lastly, some companies are not based in the U.S., therefore they don't have to honor your request to be removed. This is the biggest reason why it is very difficult to control spam in the internet. There will always be a constant struggle in controlling spam. |
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| What Next? | ||||
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When you finally get a new email address be sure NOT to give it out to any
website online. Use this address strictly for communication between friends and
family. A little trick that some people have is that they sign up for more than
one email address at places like Yahoo or MSN. They then only give out one email
address to these online advertisers while keeping a "clean" email address just
for their friends and family. You don't have to check this alternate email
address every day, you could check it only once a month if you wanted to, and if
you ever forget the login information then you really haven't lost anything, you
can simply create a new email address.
"All virtue is
summed up in dealing justly." |
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| Eliminate spam | ||||
| So the best way to eliminate spam is to never get on those lists in the first place. The only way to get off of those lists is to start over with a new email address. If you use Yahoo, MSN or any other free web based email then you may simply register a new user name because those services are free. If you are using your ISP's email (the one that your internet service provider gave you when you signed for internet service) then you might have a tougher time. Every ISP is different on how they handle a request for a new email address. Some actually give you an option of having more than one. Consult your ISP if you wish to get a new email address from them. If you don't want to go through that much trouble then you should consider signing up for a free web based email such as Yahoo or MSN. The biggest problem you will face is that you must let everyone you know that you have switched to a new email address. It always a good idea to keep your old email address for a while, if possible, just in case some people forget about your new address, or you forgot to notify other friends and family. | ||||
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