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How do I prevent unsolicited commercial email (SPAM) from coming into my email account?
Here are some general guidelines that will help you avoid getting inundated with SPAM:
1. When choosing an email address, choose a more complex name (before the @ sign) if you want to prevent SPAM. Some SPAM sites will take a domain name and put every common name in front of the @ sign and just start sending emails (this is called a "dictionary attack"). Dictionary attacks have become more prevelant recently. The result is that you might get SPAM even if no one ever found your email address anywhere. Of course, a more complicated email address is also less functional in terms of giving it out over the phone, etc.
2. If using SAGE Webmail, click on the "Report and Delete Junk" button (other email clients move the message to the public "Report as spam" folder. Only mark true SPAM messages this way, if the message is an unwanted message from a legitimate sender use the "unsubscribe" link provided in the message.
3. If you get a SPAM message, do not reply! This is an important trap that many SPAM recipients fall into. Unless you are positive that the message came from a legitimate site (e.g., something that you know you signed up for and now want to be removed), do not respond to the email or click on any remove link. Many spammers use this to determine if an email address is actually active. If they get a response, you might find that your email address is used more often and distributed to other spammers. Therefore, instead of getting removed, you actually get more SPAM.
4. Be careful regarding auto-replies. Auto-replies or "out of office" notices are used to automatically reply to an email to let the sender know something. While these are nice tools to have, be aware that the auto replies will also be sent to incoming spam that makes it through the filters. Therefore, using auto-replies can increase the amount of spam that you get. If you need an auto-reply, it is better to set your reply in our email system as opposed to using Outlook because our system will not auto-reply to messages that get detected as spam, bulk mail, or junk mail.
5. Be careful about to whom you give your email address. Many websites have privacy policies that ensure they will not give out your email address, etc. If the site is a legitimate company that you are very faimilar with, you can usually put some trust in these policies. However, if you are not visiting a well-known company's site, do not believe their privacy policy. In addition, be careful about posting your email address in newsgroups or other publicly-available forums on the Internet. SPAMMERS crawl these areas and pick up email addresses.
6. Do not let your friends or business associates put your email address on their websites. If you find your email address on someone's website (e.g., in a member list), ask them to remove your email address. Spammers have automatic "crawlers" that will pull your email address from any website, even if you don't publicize the link to the address. Note that WebExpress and WebExpress Pro sites have your email address on the contact page (if you choose to show it), but we use anti-spam technology to show the address on our sites (the address is actually shown as an image so it can't be detected by crawlers).
7. Do not use "catch all" addresses. A catch-all address is one that is specified to receive email regardless of the mailbox name. For example, a catch-all address for "abcpromos.com" will receive email to joe@abcpromos.com, fred@abcpromos.com, whoever@abcpromos.com, etc. even if you don't have those email addresses configured. While we give you the option to specify an address as a catch-all address, we highly recommend that you not use this feature. It is a surefire way to get a lot of spam, particularly because of dictionary attacks.
8. If you receive a particular message over and over, you may want to file a report with the sender's Internet Service Provider. This is often a fairly technical and time-consuming process. But, for repeat offenders, it might be worthwhile.
Spam Filter Scoring Methodology
How to set up a rule in Outlook to take advantage of spam filtering
How does SAGE Prevent Incoming SPAM on SAGE Email Accounts
Looks Like Spam to Me
| Type: | Info | Publish Date: | 8/22/2002 10:43:30 PM |
| Applies To: | Last Updated: | 4/3/2015 12:36:26 PM | |
| Platform: | All | Expiration Date: |