Everyone has had it happen to them. You sit down
at your computer and open up your email to find
a few important emails and a dozen messages from
companies trying to push their product on you.
Unsolicited commercial email, better known as
spam, is held in contempt by most people and
is at best a nuisance to others.

Since the commercialization of the internet,
a battle has been waged between the people who
see spamming as a cheap method of advertisement
and the people forced to read it. There are
several techniques which can help prevent you
from being spammed.

The best line of defense is obviously to keep
your email address away from the spammers.
Give your personal email address only to people 
whom need it and setup a different address for
outsiders to contact you at. This should help
segregate your important email from the junk.

Chances are, however, that you have an email
address that many people already contact you at
and it would be difficult to change to a new
address. In this case, a system of filters can
be used to help sort your mail into specific
folders. Outlook Express and Netscape have
a filter system built into them. In Netscape,
select Edit->Message Filters to access them.
Outlook Express has the filters under
Tools->Message Rules->Mail. You can create 
filters which move messages from specific people
into an "important" folder or check for
specific phrases in the body of the message and
if found, move them to the trash folder.

Eventually, no matter what measures you take to
prevent it, some spam will slip through. In order
to help prevent other people from receiving the
same spam, you can report the spammer to their ISP.
The simplest way to do this is to visit 
www.spamcop.net and give them a copy of the spam.
Fraudulent spam is another major concern. In these 
cases, it would be wise to contact the Oklahoma 
Attorney General. The Federal Trade Commission 
has a wonderful resource on spam at
www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/online/inbox.htm.

Spam doesn't just waste the users time. Spam wastes
bandwidth and consumes storage space. Cases have
been so severe that servers buckled and crashed
under the load of spammers. There is also a cost 
to pay salary for a staff to handle spam. Internet 
Service Providers and businesses which maintain 
their own services spend millions every year in the 
effort to fight spam and that cost has to be paid for
by someone other than the perpetrator. 

It is impossible to give a fully comprehensive
tutorial on combating spam in such a limited 
forum. The Coalition Against Unsolicited 
Commercial Email at www.cauce.org has plenty of 
detailed information on how to prevent spam, take 
action against spammers and how to contact legislators 
to convey the concerns which come with spam. The 
only way to stop the spammer is to fight them.

Ken Witherow
This article is Copyright 2001, Ken Witherow. All rights reserved.
For questions or comments, email phantoml@rochester.rr.com