Nobody likes receiving spam and having to spend time dealing with it. Even with sophisticated filtering and avoidance mechanisms discussed in my previous articles entitled "Use A Spam Filtering Tool To Manage Spam And Save Hours Everyday" and "7 Steps To Effectively Take Control Of Your Inbox And Reduce Spam", these unwanted spam messages keep on appearing. By understanding how the system works, we can effectively take steps to significantly reduce the amount of spam that we receive daily.

What we have to understand is that email marketing is by far the most effective way to promote products and services on the internet today. The basis of this system it to collect as many email addresses as you can and repeatedly send email messages out to them. There is a legitimate way to do this and then there is the way spammers do it.

The legitimate way is to collect email addresses only from people who volunteer it to you on a website in return for some information that you offer. In addition to this every email sent out must include a link or instructions on how to unsubscribe. I would take it one step further and say that unsubscription must be instantaneous. Having to wait for a few days is unacceptable with the software tools available today. Following this method, you will only receive email messages that you have opted-in for and as soon as you are not getting any value out of it, you unsubscribe.

The spammers mode of operation is to collect email addresses by any and all means available. This could be by building software spiders to crawl websites 24 hours day looking for email addresses on any page. Usually they search for the HTML tag "mailto:" but as users have stopped hyperlinking in response, the spiders are getting more sophisticated and are putting together text like "john dot smith at domain dot com" into the proper valid email address "john.smith@domain.com". Some websites list all their employees contact emails on one page and is a prime target for spam. Harvesting guestbooks where emails are displayed is also a very common practice.

Other methods are more malicious and involve virus-like or worm software being installed on your computer and feeding the names in the address book back to a spam server that collects them.

Spammers trade email addresses for money. This is why the system is out of hand - it is an income producing activity. Every email address has a value to it and no matter how little the value, putting together a list of 100,000 can provide a neat income for a spammer. Most spammers have spam lists many times larger than this.

Spammers also include the unsubscribe link at the bottom of spam emails. These links when clicked and actioned, tells the spammers that this email address actually got through to a live person and that email address is now moved onto a much higher value list and is traded for more money. Those of us who have actioned these links have found the flood of spam coming in to vastly increase within only days.

So now to the question of how to use this knowledge to reduce the spam you get?

First, understand that everytime you give out your email address to a website, that it can potentally be sold and traded. Therefore, if you are unsure about it, use an email address that is not your primary one. Webmail services like Hotmail and Yahoo Mail are perfect for this. You only get the messages when you want them and log into those services. I’ve used a Yahoo Mail address for this for years now. Everytime I log in there are more than a thousand messages but the one that I want to look at is at the top. I never have to delete these messages, Yahoo takes care of it automatically. The only requirement is that I log in to the service within a set period usually 90 or 120 days to keep the account active.

Once you are comfortable that the site concerned is legitimate, you can then change your email address to your primary one. On the other hand, if you start getting spammed, then you do nothing, let the spam emails build up and get deleted automatically by the system.

In my article entitled "7 Steps To Effectively Take Control Of Your Inbox And Reduce Spam" I discuss an elegant way to safely give out email addresses and shut them down in case they get spammed. This is by far the most effective method that I have used.

Other things to watch out for?

Spammers are facing tougher times and they are finding it harder to get new email addresses. While this is a good sign that means the general public are getting more educated, it does mean that we have to be careful of where our email addresses are shown or advertised. For example, magazines and newspapers often are great places for a spammer to collect email addresses. This is a much slower method but if we think about it, these email addresses are of much higher value because somebody has paid money to advertise and so it is bound to be a real address. This means that we have to think laterally in order to stay ahead of the spam game.

Last but not least, we can surely help significantly reduce the problem by not responding to any spam email message whether it is by clicking on a link, replying to the email or unsubscribing using a supplied link. If you really must look at the site, just type in the domain name part of it into your browser and leave out everything after the domain name. This will take you to the site without the spammers tracking identification code.

Together we can surely put a dent in this system by understanding it and staying one or a few steps ahead of spammers.

Balraj Dhaliwal is an Internet Consultant for BSD Register, a well respected and liked domain and hosting provider because of its no nonsense simple approach to getting things done. Visit BSD Register at http://www.BSDRegister.com

What Is Spam?

When referring to emails, according to the NCES (National Centre for Education Statistic), "Spam refers to electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Some people define Spam even more generally as any unsolicited e-mail. In addition to being a nuisance, Spam also eats up a lot of network bandwidth. Because the Internet is a public network, little can be done to prevent Spam, just as it is impossible to prevent junk mail. However, the use of software filters in e-mail programs can be used to remove most Spam sent through e-mail."

Some search engines use the term to describe websites that try to attain a high listing rank by submitting identical or mirror pages. In this article I am going to give you a few tips about email Spam.

If we give a too general definition to the word, we might end up taking for Spam perfectly legitimate emails. Not "any" unsolicited mail is Spam. Spam means unsolicited bulk email.

If a message is unsolicited that doesn’t make it Spam. The same goes for bulk. A message is Spam only if it is both unsolicited and bulk. When you receive an unsolicited job enquiry, you do receive an uncalled-for email. But is that Spam? No. What about a newsletter? That is bulk, but no Spam if you are a subscriber.

Why Do You Get Spam?

Have you posted your email address online in forums, chat rooms, on your website? Than why do you marvel? Spammers gather the addresses from the Internet; so no wonder your own found its way onto a spammer’s list. Besides, spammers use different other means to get what they want: viruses, Trojans, buying from other spammers.

Spam Scams

How many times have you received an "update your account" email from paypal, a bank or ebay? How many times have you received a "warning message"? Maybe it didn’t look suspicious to you as it came from an institution you work with, but was it really that way? This kind of emails is referred to as "phishing scam". There is not much you can do when this happens. Just don’t click on any links in that email, don’t give away any confidential information such as social security number, bank account or credit card number. There are some free tools that can protect you against known phishing websites. For example download the free EarthLink toolbar and report the scam to the Anti-Phishing Working Group.

What about the emails from different Nigerian (or other nationalities) citizens offering you a percentage of a vast sum of money? Yes, you’ve got that right: scam. You’ll only loose your money on this one. Better don’t be curious. They will ask you to pay a fee in advance – a so called transfer tax, and guess what: some complications will appear, you have to pay more and more and end up with nothing. And don’t believe the "you won money" lottery sweepstakes either. You’ll only spend. The same goes for the Nigerian purchase scam: they want to buy something from you, pay by check and they wish the goods to be sent in Lagos, Nigeria.

A Major Don’t

Don’t reply to spammers… ever! Don’t send any "remove me" message. By doing so you confirm your address is active, you show you read bulk messages, you prove your ISP doesn’t use Spam filters. You are the perfect candidate. You will never be removed. On the contrary…

Spam Fighters

If Spam really bothers you and you want to fight against it, than you have plenty of possibilities. If you are an American, join Cauce at: http://www.cauce.org/ If not… check out Cauce’s international partners (example: EuroCAUCE for Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland, France, Norway).

Associations such as to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, the American Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or other volunteers’ organizations are there to help protecting you against scam or other illegal emails (children pornography for example). Detailed information about Spam, Spammers and ways to fight against them you can find here: http://spamhaus.org/

Mihaela Lica is a skilled journalist and PR consultant, founder of Pamil Visions – http://www.pamil-visions.com/

Previously she used to work as a military TV redactor for Pro Patria and the Military Media Trust within the Public Relations Directorate of the Romanian Ministry of Defence.

To clarify, I am not talking about rotten eggs or that horrible stuff the poor depression dwellers had to eat, I am talking about computer e-mail spam.

What is this spam I speak of?

Spam is best defined as unsolicited and unwanted commercial electronic messages or e-mails that are sent to large numbers of people.

Ask any computer user and the most annoying thing about having and using e-mail is the annoying amount of spam you get. It is predicted that spam could eventually kill the usability of e-mail unless effective barriers and law changes are introduced. In 2003 it was reported that 40% of all e-mail traffic in the US was spam up from just 8% in 2001. Over the past 6 months this figure has doubled. Hotmail a popular e-mail service, says that 80% of e-mail coming to their servers is spam.

You might say that I don’t get as much spam as I used to. Well this is thanks to internet providers and businesses filtering this out before you see it. One problem with spam filters is that occasionally users encounter false positives in which important and legitimate e-mail gets blocked. Due to these necessary anti-spam measures, the costs involved are huge. Not only does all this excessive internet traffic clog up the internet freeway, but all these e-mails are downloaded to servers before the anti-spam software deletes it. Businesses worldwide report that 20% of all e-mail received is spam. It is estimated that the true cost of spam for businesses in the United States alone is $8-9 billion US dollars per year.

Why is there so much spam?

The simple answer is that there is a market for spam. If people didn’t buy from spam e-mail there wouldnt be any spam. All the spammer needs is for one person, out of a few hundred thousand e-mails, to buy something and it makes the whole process worth while. Sending the spam requires little effort on the spammers part as the computer automates the process meaning that it is very easy to send out over a million e-mails an hour.

What is the world and in particular New Zealand doing about all this spam?

On the 23rd of February ‘05 the Information Technology minister, Paul Swann, released a proposed law will that make it illegal to send spam that originates from NZ. Only problem is that only 1% of spam originates from Australia and NZ, and to actually catch and prosecute a spammer is very difficult due to spammers being good at hiding there identity.

In April ‘05, a 30 year old spammer in the United States became the first person to be prosecuted for spamming. He was sentenced to a nine year prison term. He is described as a modern day snake oil salesman being the eighth most prolific spammer in the world, sending up to 10 million e-mails a day from his house. His income was $750,000 US per month, with one in every 30,000 e-mails sent generating money. He sent out so much e-mail that he received, on average, 15,000 credit card orders a month, each order worth an average of $US40. His total worth is $24 million US dollars, he advertised pornography, fake products and services. During the court case the assistant attorney general said and I quote "When your marketing to the world, there are enough idiots out there who will be suckered in."

Remember that spam is only a problem due to people purchasing from spam e-mail, if there was no demand there would be no spam, security firm Mirapoint, reports that 1 in 10 people buy something from spam e-mail.

So how do I protect myself from spam?

There are a three main ways to stop being spammed.

The first and the best form of defence is not to give out your personal e-mail address. Don’t publicise your address in chat rooms or fill in forms on a website. For this purpose, you are best to use a public e-mail address such as a hotmail account, as some web site owners are more than happy to sell your e-mail address to a spammer.

Secondly use an internet provider that controls and monitors spam.

Thirdly install anti-spam software on your PC.

Therefore in this day and age there really is no need to eat green eggs and spam!

Richard Warlow is a director of http://www.brontobyte.co.nz, a Computer Retailer in Christchurch, New Zealand, supplying to local small businesses and home users of computer equipment and servicing. I am also a toastmaster, this article was based on a speech given.

Yes, you know the four-letter word I’m talking about and everyone wants to know how to get rid of it. Rhymes-with-ham has become such an overwhelming issue that ISPs are trying to do all sorts of things by setting up filters and blocking emails. The problem with this approach is that you don’t get the emails you want and you keep getting the ones you don’t want. It’s a vicious cycle. The Federal anti-rhymes-with-ham legislation has been passed into law and is effective immediately. How will this affect you? If you are a legitimate email marketer with opt-in subscribers you’re going to have to include your postal mailing address in your mass communications. Also, you’ll need to have an easy way for people to unsubscribe if they choose. Now, will this law work for preventing all that rhymes-with-ham showing up in your email box? We’ll have to wait and see.

Earlier this year I got an email that said for $15 I could have my email address placed on a National No-Spam List. Since the Colorado No-Call List for telemarketers seemed to be working after adding my phone # there, I thought why not give this a try? Well, most of you are probably already predicting that this was money not well spent. It didn’t work.

Factoid: There are over two million websites about rhymes-with-ham. What does this tell you? It’s a huge problem in need of a solution.

SpamKiller softwares - Doesn’t the name alone sound so powerful? Surely it’s got to do the trick. What I like about some of these softwares is that all the blocked messages are put into a separate email area that can be viewed. Messages can be "rescued" with a click if they are not rhymes-with-ham. What I don’t like about these programs is that every time someone responded to an email that I sent and kept the same subject line in the reply - it was treated as rhymes-with-ham. By day 2 or 3 all rhymes-with-ham messages were coming through my regular email program and important business emails were being "filtered" into the blocked messages box. This was actually taking more time than simply hitting the delete key.

Setting up Email Filters - I spent about two hours one day setting up my own email filters to try and block the rhymes-with-hammers. I simply took the subject lines of several rhymes-with-ham emails sitting in my in-box and made a list of them in Word. Next, I copied and pasted those into my email program and told it to delete messages that contain these words. Again, this system failed to work because the rhymes-with- hammers keep inventing new words and subject lines. Take these two hours of time saved and use it more wisely getting reciprocal links which is much more fun and profitable.

Delete - My dirt simple approach to the rhymes-with- ham problem is the delete key. When I open my email program the first thing I scan for are subject lines that are business related. I respond to those first. Next, I look for familiar personal email addresses from friends or family. I move those to a personal folder to respond to later. Next, I start deleting the rhymes-with-ham without opening any of them. I have also learned that if you try to get removed from these lists by clicking on the links in their emails - you’ll get even more rhymes- with-ham.

What is the solution for rhymes-with-ham? When people quit reading, responding and buying from these emails we may see less. This is a dream I have. Of course, I’ve thought the same about telemarketers and they’re still around. It’s unlikely that this will happen anytime soon.

The most immediate, free and simple solution is to use the delete key and use it often. This is a mindless task that can be done while sipping your morning latte or enjoying an ice-cold beverage.

Ok, enough about rhymes-with-ham - I’m getting hungry and going to make a ham sandwich. Pass the mustard please.

Anita Larson, The Web Muse & Co., http://www.thewebmuse.com Creating websites that attract your ideal clients.

So what’s all this talk about "Sender ID" and what exactly does it mean to you as an email user? Sender ID is the convergence of Microsoft’s "Caller ID" and Meng Wong’s "Sender Policy Framework" (SPF).

What Sender ID does is verify that every piece of email sent actually did originate from the domain it claims to have come from, based on the sender’s server IP.

The majority of junk email being sent uses forged sender addresses. This practice is also known as "Spoofing." Spoofing goes hand in hand with a scam called "Phishing." This is where someone sends spoofed email, usually pretending to be from your Bank, credit card companies or other highly trusted organizations, trying to get you to divulge your credit card numbers,usernames or passwords — even your social security number. Once the phisher obtains this information, it is used to hack into your financial accounts or make unauthorized charges on your cards. For more on Phishing, see this site: http://www.antiphishing.org/ Sender ID will hopefully prevent these types of practices completely.

A draft proposal of Sender ID was sent for review to the "Internet Engineering Task Force" for consideration as an Industry Standard for email authentication.

The task force’s decision remains to be seen. Microsoft recently threw a wrench in the mix by deciding to demand a registration license for their part of the Sender ID Program. Since the new protocols need to be freely available to the public, this is causing additional problems.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the Sender ID process in a nutshell:

1) All email servers must publish the ID address of their outbound email servers in the DNS (Domain Name System)

2) When email is received, each system looks at the incoming messages to determine if they did indeed originate from the domains listed.

3) This verification is determined by querying the DNS for the list of outbound email server IP addresses for that particular domain. If the IP the email was sent from is not in that list, it is most likely a spoofed message.

Remember, sender ID offers no guarantee that your email will be delivered, nor does it solve the huge Spam problem, but it will stop Domain Identity Theft by spoofers.

For more information, even an online wizard to help you create your own SPF text record see http://microsoft.com/mscorp/twc/privacy/spam_senderid.mspx another great resource with some very handy tools is http://spf.pobox.com

Merle has been "working" the Net for over 8 years and has a Special Gift just for you. Download my FREE E-book "50 Easy Ways to Promote Your Website". Get your copy now at http://www.WebSiteTrafficPlan.com

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included.

So you think all of your subscribers are receiving your ezine? Better think again. With the rise of Spam filtering software, both by ISP’s and end users, odds are your ezine may be getting deleted before it’s even delivered to your subscribers.

There are two main types of filters: those installed on the end user’s computer and server side programs used by Internet Service Providers. The most popular program used is http://SpamAssassin.org

So what does this mean to you as a publisher? If you want to make sure your ezine is being read you’ll want to pay close attention to the tips given here. After all, do you spend your time writing a good ezine just to have it sent to the trash? I didn’t think so.

Spam filters work by counting the words in your ezine that fall on their "target lists," each of which has been assigned a numeric value. After they’re done "scanning" your email, they add up your score. If your total value is above a set number, it is determined to be "spam" and sent to the trash bin. Gone forever, and your subscribers are none the wiser. Filters search the message, the header, the subject line and looks at the formatting as well. To see what Spam Assassin looks at go to…. http://www.spamassassin.org/tests.html

I personally use filtering software due to the hundreds of unsolicited messages I receive daily. But I always go through the "trash bin" first and glance through it before hitting the delete key to make sure it hasn’t captured something I want or need. The problem is that most users of filtering software either don’t want to spend the time, or don’t know how to check it to see what was "killed." So many of them may be missing your ezine, even though they have subscribed to receive it.

Now do you see how tough it is just getting your ezine into the hands of your subscribers? The trick is to be "smarter" then the filters and utilize some of the great free tools that have sprung up to help publishers with this exact problem.

Before sending out your next issue, run it through one of these free checkers to see if it will make it past the filters and find out what your ezines total score is along with tips on how to improve.

1) SiteSell Spam Check http://spamcheck.sitesell.com

Go to the above url or submit your ezine to mailto:spamcheck@sitesell.net with the word TEST in all caps before your ezine name in the subject line.

Example: TEST Merle’s Mission Ezine

2) Lyris Content Checker http://www.lyris.com/contentchecker/

Runs your ezine through a battery of tests used by "Spam Assassin." Paste your ezine into the web based form, hit submit and the results will be emailed to you.

3) AssuranceSys.com- If you don’t mind parting with some of your cash, Assurance Systems will run a variety of tests for you and let you know how your ezine stacks up against the filters and if you’ve been blacklisted. Check them out at http://AssuranceSys.com

So what’s considered "bad" to filtering software and what can you do to reduce your score? I thought you’d never ask. Here are some tips to help:

1) Be careful with your subject line- Avoid the word free or using all caps or excessive punctuation.

2) Using a lot of fancy HTML formatting can hurt you. Many filters will kill HTML emails as a given mistaking them for viruses.

3) A larger size can actually help you. Anywhere from 20k to 40K is good and will actually subtract bad points from your total score.

4) Blocking: Make sure your IP address is not being blacklisted. This can happen if your site is hosted on an open relay or you’re sharing an IP address with someone who is a known spammer. You don’t want to get yourself blacklisted so be careful here.

5) Avoid the use of the words free, click here, remove, spam, and any others known to be on the list. This is pretty hard. Some publishers have resorted to putting * or ^ in exchange for letters. For example fr^e or Sp*m- It’s highly debatable if this will work or not since most filters will be catching on to this technique soon if they haven’t already.

6) Set up free accounts at Yahoo and Hotmail and subscribe to your own ezine and monitor the boxes to see if your ezine is making it through their filters.

For further tips I recommend the following resources:

"Avoid the Spam Filter Trap" http://assurance.sys.com/f/avoid-spam-filter-trap.pdf

"List of Filtering Trigger Words" http://www.iprofitsystems.com/articles/spamfilters.html

"20 Ways Opt in Emailers can Outsmart Spam Filters" http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt8/spamfilter-avoidance.htm

Nice list of trigger words here: http://www.sv-cs.spam.html

As you can see, publishing an ezine and getting it to your subscribers is no longer an easy task. One practice that has been adopted by some publishers is to send a follow-up email after your ezine has gone out, stating that it has been sent, including a url where your subscribers can go to read the issue online. I do this and every week that link registers 50 to 100 clicks, so obviously a lot of people aren’t getting it the first time.

There’s also a new service called Habeas.com which is a whitelisting tool. For a large sum of cash they’ll give you a line of code to add to your email headers which guarantees your message will pass through the filters. They have special relationships with ISP’s and mail filters that recognize the header labeling you a "good guy." It’s not inexpensive. Visit their site for more info on how it works at http://habeas.com

There’s no way to beat filtering, but by being informed and knowing what you’re up against and how to improve, you’ll stand a much better chance of getting your ezine where it needs to be. And that’s why you started publishing in the 1st place, isn’t it?

Merle has been "working" the Net for over 8 years and has a Special Gift just for you. Download my FREE E-book "50 Easy Ways to Promote Your Website". Get your copy now at http://www.WebSiteTrafficPlan.com

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included.

Ever have a mosquito in your bedroom at night? Oh, man. There you are, nice and happy, about to fall asleep when, zzzzzzz, there’s this irritating buzzing in your ear. You whack at the source. The zzzzzzz stops. You got it. Good.

But wait a few minutes and, zzzzzzz, there it is again. You take another swipe, then another. Maybe you even jump out of bed and flick on the lights. But you can’t find that crazy mosquito. Or maybe you do find it, and gladly squish it.

Then you go back to bed and are almost asleep when, zzzzzzz. Yes, another mosquito. Who invited these things to the party? Didn’t you put screens on the windows to stop this very thing? Can’t the mayor do something about it?

That’s what SPAM is like.

SPAM is when someone sends one email to a whole bunch of people who were minding their own business and didn’t ask to receive the email. Suddenly it appears in your Inbox, uninvited and rather annoying.

So how do you stop it? Simple, delete the email. But then you get another one from the same spammer. You might try to tell them to take you off their list. And they might actually take you off their list (or not). You might try to block their emails so you just don’t get them in your Inbox. But even if that works, another spammer will find your email address somehow and start sending you other SPAM emails.

Tired of all the unsolicited emails, you might get serious and get anti-spam software (it might even come with your anti-virus software). And that might stop most of the SPAM. But why can’t SPAM be stopped all together?

Well, the mayor might not be able to do anything about stopping SPAM, but the US Government is taking it seriously. In 2004, their CAN-SPAM Act became law, dealing with email “whose primary purpose is advertising or promoting a commercial product or service, including content on a Web site.” –quoted from http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.htm

And that’s why SPAM is like a mosquito in your bedroom at night.

Copyright (c) Grant Pasay 2005. All rights reserved. You may forward this article in its entirety (including author bio/links) to anyone you wish.

Grant Pasay is a professional website copywriter, advertising copywriter, and SEO copywriter serving clients in Vancouver, BC and everywhere. Grant is also the author of the FREE e-book, "The Internet Is Like A Refrigerator."

For copy that captures your business message without any of the hassle, go to http://grantpasay.com/

Check out Grant’s FREE e-book at http://grantpasay.com/refrigerator/

Most anyone who spends any time on line can tell you that pop up ads are nothing if not annoying. Stopping them is a good way to speed up your surfing and put in a plug in one more way for viruses and spyware to invade your system. Luckily there are a number of free pop up blockers on the internet that will help you do just that. As for which are the best, there are five that come to mind initially: Google, STOPzilla, Window Shades, Firefox and PopOops all offer fantastic free pop up blockers for you to use.

The Google Toolbar with Free pop blocker will block the majority of pop ups. In addition to the pop up blocker, you will automatically get a number of other features as it is a tool bar download. You will have features such as being able to search Google from your task bar, which can be handy, but the pop up blocker is the real value in this free download. The drawback that puts some people off, though, is that there is a page rank feature. This feature reports back to Google what sites you have visited.

Another free pop up blocker you may want to consider is the STOPzilla pop up blocker. This particular blocker is produced by a software company called Roxio. The STOPzilla blocker not only stops pop up ads as you browse, but it also includes protection from adware, spyware, cookies, and even hi-jackers. For a small fee, you can also get one year of service with the pop up blocker.

If you really only want your free pop up blocker to do one thing, block pop ups, then consider the Window Shades Popup Blocker. This free blocker is very effective in the blocking of those annoying pop ups. As an ad on to Internet Explorer, it does not have to be turned on separately. It only runs when explorer does, so you don’t have to worry about memory being burned up when you aren’t even on line.

If you don’t mind moving away from Internet Explorer, you may want to think about using Firefox Browser with Pop Up Blocker. This freeware web browser is something you would need to use instead of your Internet Explorer. In addition to the effective pop up blocking, you also get a fun little tabbed browsing feature.

Lastly, there is PopOops pop up blocker. A free pop up blocker, PopOops is a relatively small program that is good at what it does, which is simply to block those annoying pop ups. It runs in the system tray instead of in your browser and can be programmed so that you hear a sound or so that a balloon pops up when a pop up is blocked form your computer.

Pop ups are annoying and sometimes dangerous, but who wants to spend a ton of money on Popup Blockers to avoid them? Nobody does, which is why you should consider finding the free pop blocker that is right for you. It only takes a minute to locate the right one and get it downloaded onto your PC of laptop, and it is worth it to avoid the annoyance that is pop ups. So take the time to fix the pop ups, you will certainly be glad you did.

Christopher M. Luck has an extensive background in building superior popup blockers and is now offering his free professional popup blocker advice to the public. If you are at all interested in Christopher’s popup blocker advice, tips, or secrets, you can visit his popup blocker blog

Dear Hacker,

Since I’m writing articles to ezinearticles.com you have frequented our side with your harassments (and you will probably read this). Why are you doing that?

I think that hacking is a function that is well needed. I also can imagine that not every hacker has the ability to jump on the big and important sites. You need to learn the job and you try a simple site somewhere in the open.

Let me try to figure out who you are. Here are some of your phrases (I have taken the liberty of copying them):

You left many more footprints on our site (which I could reveal). If those words are of your own, you have a cultural background. In Holland there is this famous writer I’m very fond of. He – Arnon Grunberg - said: Character is what you do when nobody watches (you). I guess, what you do when nobody watches is of a very poor quality. I do not know much about you. Yet if you would be a professional hacker you would probably earn your money hacking important sites. So you must be young, still learning the job unattended and without friends.

My advice to you is: Grow up.

© 2005 Hans Bool / Astor White

Astor White. Serious business. Committed to your management issues. On a distance.

According to a recent study conducted by Ferris Research, a market and technology research firm specializing in messaging and collaboration, Spam will cost U.S. businesses over $10 billion in 2003.

Spam not only clogs our servers and in-boxes, but it also costs us hours and hours of lost time in productivity.

Although the estimated cost of Spam focuses mainly on lost productivity, this picture may be much broader than you realize.

Some of the more popular email providers, such as AOL (America Online), Yahoo! and Hotmail, are now utilizing filters to cut down on Spam. These filters are dumping Spam and/or bulk mailings into a separate location. Although this may cut down on Spam in your in-box, these filters are also dumping some legitimate email messages.

What’s more, some hosting services not only filter the email messages, but they’re also blocking entire hosting companies. For example, the blocking host may have gotten some Spam complaints about a few marketers that host with ABC hosting company. (Keep in mind, ABC hosting company may host thousands of sites.) Rather than block the offending marketers, the blocking host decides to blacklist the entire ABC host.

What this means is if you try to contact someone and their hosting company has blacklisted your host, your email will not go through — it will bounce right back to you.

If you suspect you may not be receiving all of your email, contact your host and ask them if they’re using Spam filters or have blocked entire hosting companies.

How Much Will Spam Cost Your Business?

How much time do you spend sorting through the Spam in your email each day? Add it up sometime — I’ll bet you’ll find you spend a lot more time than you even realized — time that could have been spent on your business.

If you’re publishing an ezine or sending out any form of opt-in mailings, how many subscribers are actually receiving your mailings? Most-likely, not nearly as many subscribers as you may think. How many lost sales has this cost you?

How many messages, such as information requests, customer support requests, etc., have you not received due to filtering?

How many messages have you replied to that your customers or potential customers have never received due to filtering?

As customer service says a lot about your business practices, how many customers will you lose?

The list goes on and on. But the point is this, Spam is costing you dearly.

Protecting Your Email Address

So how can you defend yourself? Well, it depends on which side you’re on — how to protect yourself, and/or how to make sure your messages are getting through.

In order to protect yourself against Spam, you first need to understand how your email address is obtained.

There are many unethical businesses online that collect and sell email addresses. They use robots that travel from link to link in search of email addresses. Their customers are led to believe that these email addresses belong to individuals who want to receive mailings. However, much of the time, this isn’t the case.

Never purchase a list of email addresses from anyone other than a reputable company. The only company I can recommend is Post Master Direct. http://www.postmasterdirect.com

To protect your email address from these robots, instead of displaying your address on your site, use a feedback form. Not just any type of form, but a form that doesn’t display your email address within the hidden form fields. The only form I can recommend is Master Feedback. You can pick up a free copy here: http://willmaster.com/master/feedback/index.shtml

Anytime you’re filling out a form online and you’re asked to provide your email address, make sure you review the site’s "Privacy Policy" to ensure that your email address will not be sold or shared with a third party.

Protecting Your In-box

To protect your in-box, you can use a Spam filtering software program. Although there are several available online, the best one I’ve found is Mail Washer. This program will enable you to view all the email on your server without actually downloading it into your email program. Once you’ve reviewed your messages, you can create filters and bounce the Spam messages back to the sender. Although you can pick up the program free, consider supporting the developer and register the software for a small fee. http://www.mailwasher.net

Avoiding the Spam Filters

If you’re sending out a mailing to an opt-in list, there are a few steps you can take to make sure your message won’t trip the Spam filters:

1) Avoid using trigger words, such as Spam, fr*e, r*move, etc. Although the list is far too broad to list here, you can learn more by reading the following articles:

Spam Filters Run-Amuck by Timothy A. Gross http://www.iprofitsystems.com/articles/spamfilters.html

CLIP & SAVE guide to avoiding Spam filters by Debbie Weil http://www.imakenews.com/wordbiz/e_article000094161.cfm

2) Avoid using JavaScript within your messages.

3) Avoid using "bad" words.

If you’d like to ensure your messages are getting through, consider opening email accounts with the popular providers. You can send your mailings to these accounts and monitor their reception. If your mailings land in the dump, you can make some adjustments or even contact the company.

If you would like to test your outgoing email messages to ensure they won’t trigger a Spam filter, Ken Evoy offers a great service called SpamCheck. This free service will enable you to send a copy of your publication, or any email message, to a specific address and it will return a report of possible words that will trigger the Spam filters.

Send your publication including the subject and body to: mailto:spamcheck-websource@sitesell.net

Conclusion

The Spam problem continues to get progressively worse. Although there isn’t a simple solution to the problem, the information provided in this article should assist you in not only avoiding Spam, but also avoiding the filters for your legitimate mailings.

It’s really a shame we’re even in this position. However, we cannot allow Spam to continue to infiltrate our businesses. We must take the necessary steps to ensure our success.

Copyright © Shelley Lowery

About the Author:

Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, "Web Design Mastery" (www.webdesignmastery.com) and "eBook Starter - Give Your eBooks the look and feel of a REAL book" (www.ebookstarter.com)

Visit www.Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to eTips and receive a copy of Shelley’s acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing Strategies."

You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook, or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.