Curiously enough, the word spam is a negative reference to that pink, hulk of meat that comes in a can that, most people say, has no nutritional value whatsoever.

In more common internet terms, spam is one or more messages sent repeatedly and massively to countless e-mail address, often resulting in flooded and crowded mailboxes all over the world.

What started out as another insistent branch of internet advertising has now evolved into something that the U.S. government is gravely concerned about.

Even without knowing the word "spam," you are most probably aware of an annoying circumstance when you opened your mailbox to find countless of worthless messages, often linking you to equally vague and suspicious websites and offers.

Internet experts have declared that spam costs money for both consumers and internet providers. Why? Simply because the consumers have to waste time in opening e-mail that is not relevant to their lives, and therefore throw away precious minutes that they have paid for through their for providers.

This may not seem to be of such great magnitude if we’re just talking about spam that took 10 seconds to open, but think about something like 5,000 people all over the country each opening 10 spammed e-mails and you’ve got an alarming number, and this is already thinking very conservatively and small-scale.

As for the providers, they are the ones who get a barrage of complaints whenever their clients get flooded with spam.

The cost of providing free minutes to placate these customers, plus dispatching staff to work round the clock, plus the added stress of assuring their clients that they are not in league with the spammers, all make up a very difficult and costly business.

Concerned U.S. officials have been fighting spam for almost a decde now. And while there are now several software that can detect and filter spam, hackers have also become better at grabbing mailing lists and developing their own software to bypass all these filters.

Suddenly, you can’t just tell if an e-mail is spam by simply looking at the subject line where garbled characters often appear. You’ll find that not only will they address you with your first name, you’ll also see that the sender has a name that seems vaguely familiar to you.

It seems that spam is everywhere. You can’t join mailing lists, internet newletter subscriptions, or even go into online gaming without expecting to get spammed along the way.

People nowadays are cautioned to be careful whenever they are prompted for their e-mail addresses.

It would also not do to trust a spam’s content. Oftentimes, these e-mails contain invitations to vague and shady businesses such as pornography, multi-level marketing companies, miracle cures, and obscure products, products that are so totally worthless that it’s proprietors would certainly not invest in good money to have them advertised the normal way.

In truth, using spam as an advertising tool costs less on the advertisers, and more, much more, on the consumers.

What To Do About Spam

Most spammed e-mails give you the option to be removed from their mailing lists -all you have to do is click "remove" or "unsubscribe." Experts, however, warn that this is just misleading information.

The truth is, all you would actually get out of doing this is validating your e-mail address as a working one, therefore giving these hackers more reason to include you in more mailing lists to eventually sell to more and more clients who will surely send you more spam.

Even as the concerned officials battle it out with hackers and spammers, there are also ways that you can participate, even indirectly:

1. Make sure that you wade through your e-mail to actually find out if an innocent message got lost in the sea of spam

2. Notify anti-spam groups of new tactics that you observe, either firsthand or through your close friends and family

3. Don’t fight spam with spam. If you are angry at having been spammed, don’t threaten the spammers or worse, send them your own spam. This would be really wrong, not to mention ironic

4. Be patient with your provider. Chances are, they are doing the best they can to fight spam.

5. Don’t hit that "remove" or "unsubscribe" button. You now know that it doesn’t work. Tell other people about it.

James Monahan is the owner and Senior Editor of SpamTour.com and writes expert articles about spam.

Weekly, I keep an eye to the horizon to assess new developments in the Internet environment. In noting the changes, I sometimes begin to feel overwhelmed by feelings of doom.

The S~P~A~M problem is one such item that leaves me at times in much distress. I fear the trends of the ISP’s in their efforts to get control of the S~P~A~M situation.

The ISP’s are pushed and prodded by the ISP’s customers as they begin to feel overwhelmed by the volume of unappreciated UCE email.

Now and again, companies spring up to promise a new technology to combat the growing problems faced by the ISP’s and their customers.

Early on, the promising technologies included blacklists and email filters. I say "early on" because I have been fighting to overcome S~P~A~M filters for the last five years. The people who receive mail from me in the form of ezines or newsletters have ALL double-opted-in to receive my publications.

The sad thing is that as long as I have been publishing an ezine, I have had subscribers who could not receive my publications due to email filters.

Just a few months ago, I was feeling very depressed about the future or lack of a future for email. It seems that the filters are becoming so intrusive that very few emails will actually reach their actual and intended recipients. And it seems the problem will only get worse.

Now, we have a company offering a new solution that is almost more Draconian than email filters. Habeas, Inc. has created an email header and filters to assure that the people doing the mailings are authorized to do so by the anti-S~P~A~M zealots, a.k.a. the Habeas, Inc. accountant.

Habeas believes that online commercial enterprises should pay them a fee to guarantee that their email will be delivered to those who have asked to receive mail from them.

Personally, I am hoping someone will use the one keyword that has most damaged the Internet to damage the future of the Habeas concept. That one word is "free".

Think about this. If someone was to feel secure enough to stand up to the Habeas saber rattling about Copyrights and Patents, and to offer a very similar service for FREE, then we can as a community destroy the pay-to-send-email concept before it has a chance to build any real momentum.

Today I read a small story about a email hoax perpetuated by a student at Yale University:

http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=22111

The interesting thing that came out of this story is that the Yale Administration came up with a simple solution to this problem. They have directed their IT department to add a link to every email that shows the URL where the official copy of the email being sent can be seen on the secured Yale website.

The solution is that if the link does not appear with the email pointing to where the communication can be seen on the Yale website, then the reader is to assume that the email is a hoax.

Interesting, eh?

Like I said, a few months ago, I felt very pessimistic about the future of email. These days, my outlook is not nearly so bad.

When I realized that I would change the format of my own publication, I also realized that I would move the publication to my own mail server and I would also send two copies of the ezine. The first copy would be a full HTML copy of the ezine, and the second copy will consist of only a link to the URL where one can view the ezine online. The second mailing is only for those whose ISP blocked the original mailing.

Imagine that. There are in fact ways out there to conquer the email hoax perpetrators and there are ways out there to conquer the email filtering software. And finally, there is in fact a way to defeat the Habeas, Inc. pay-to-send-email program.

The future does not look so dim anymore.

Copyright Bill Platt - All Rights Reserved

Bill Platt is the owner of http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com

• When you are tired of the struggle of the link building process, it might be time to consider our "Links And Traffic" services.

This is not a link rental system or a reciprocal linking scam. We Guarantee our results.

LET THERE BE LIGHT: To understand this story, we must return to the beginning — September 5th, 2001. One of my associates had placed a free ad in a newsletter that she had just subscribed to. For that effort, she was accused of spam! Mind you the person filing the complaint was not the editor of the newsletter, but rather a subscriber of the newsletter.

The man was frustrated because he was having difficulty getting unsubscribed from the newsletter, so he filed a complaint against everyone who was listed in the body of the message, rather than just the list owner. It was his frustration, anger and ignorance that fueled this nasty little affair.

My friend lives in a very small town in Canada that has only one ISP. The Upline Provider for the local ISP was demanding her account to be turned off permanently because of this accusation which was later dropped. The local ISP stood their ground on behalf of their customer — my friend — though this action could have seriously hampered their ability to provide their customers with Internet access.

Even in dropping his claim against my friend, the person who filed the complaint insisted that my friend was somehow still responsible for his inability to unsubscribe from the newsletter in question!

The person who filed this complaint was using a system designed by programmer Julian Haight to combat spam email called SpamCops.net.

INTO THE PIT: In my original copy written September 10th, I had compared the tactics of the few diehard SpamCop anti-spammers to the tactics of a terrorist.

In the wake of September 11th, it did not seem appropriate to refer to the SpamCop fanatics as terrorists. However closely the tactics of intimidation and coercion used by the SpamCop fanatics coincides with the tactics used by the al-Qaida terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden, SpamCop does not resort to murder.

Due to SpamCop.net’s unwillingness to provide a real person contact for the resolution of complaints, I was forced to turn to their discussion board to find the resolution I was seeking — a resolution, which by the way, was never found.

My major complaint was that for someone to file against another simply because their email address or website appeared in someone else’s ezine was improper.

Many members had knee jerk reactions to my questioning their system from within their inner sanctum. Many resorted to name calling and angry retort until a list administrator called them down. After the list administrator directly addressed their inappropriate comments, I received three open apologies from members of the group.

PUBLISHERS BEWARE. Over the course of the next few days, I watched their discussions. I was appalled to learn that many of them put email addresses in circulation just so that they can torment others with spam accusations.

As an owner of several discussion lists and newsletters, I now make it a standard policy to bar participation in my groups by someone sporting a SpamCop.net email address.

I had tried to observe their group with an open mind, as I too find spam mail to be annoying. I receive nearly 50 pieces a day from four to five people, who send me the same ads day after day. What is really annoying is they send the spam to my autoresponders with a fake address, so I get another 50 messages a day telling me that I used an invalid email address in my autoresponder message. All have spidered my website to get the email addresses.

A SPAMCOP SPEAKS. In all fairness, I was leaning towards a semi-favorable opinion of the SpamCop program until "Jerry" lashed out.

In his message, Jerry told me things which will just make you want to explode in frustration.

He said of the innocent who get caught in the cross-fire of the spam wars: "They should stay home."

He went on to say, "it is far better for thousands of innocents to burn in Hell than one spammer prevail."

And, "Truth, Justice, and the American Way - or lack thereof - is irrelevant. Spammers must believe there are no loopholes, no gray areas, that the righteous will be sacrificed (in vast numbers if need be) in order to expunge the evildoers."

In conclusion, it was stated, "Spam, like the one true faith, is in the eye of the beholder. Again, if it looks like a bird, it might be a duck. Better the condor dies than risk a quack."

These of course are just excerpts. If you would care to read his entire message to me, you may do so at the bottom of this page:

http://shopmystate.com/niba/BillP.html

NO SAFE HAVEN: On two occasions, I have found myself squarely in the cross-hairs of the radicals or the angry that wear the shield of SpamCop. I publish articles for free-reprint on the web — much as this article has come to you today.

The SpamCop’s suggested that I was hiding behind the free- reprint rights connected to my articles. They suggested that I was encouraging spam by making my work available to be published by anyone. In response to their suggestions that I am the enemy, I have added one term to my Terms of Reprint:

* You may not use this article in UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email). Email distribution of this article must be opt-in email only.

Despite this step, I have been accused of spam twice because my article appeared in a newsletter that a complaint was lodged against. In both cases, the SpamCop member did not file a complaint against the person who was responsible for the newsletter — they filed against everyone who was in the body of the email.

Their complaint was received by the editor of the newsletter, the article writers, the advertisers, and anyone who was fortunate enough to be mentioned in the resources section or the Letters to the Editor. We each had our ISP and Upline Providers contacted if our email address appeared in the body of the newsletter and our webhosts contacted if our domain appeared within the body of the newsletter.

The only way I can completely avoid spam complaints against my domains is to stop writing altogether. I am a writer. That is what writers do, we write. To please the SpamCop’s, I must quit being a writer or just "stay home."

POLICING THE POLICE. This is silly. If we cannot trust the cops to make sure they nab the right person, who can we trust?

There is in fact a movement afoot to bring SpamCop down called "Arresting SpamCop": http://www.niba.shopmystate.com/

While some of the SpamCop members are simply tired of the same kinds of spam that irritates us, there are others within the movement who have an axe to grind with everyone who crosses their path.

To suggest to a SpamCop member that folks should be trained in the nuances of who to complain against in a complaint, you can expect a reply like this. "Jerry" answered my suggestion precisely this way:

"SpamCop users are literate, intelligent, virtually all college educated, well-versed in spam, and are more computer-savvy than 99% of the world’s population. It is presumptuous and arrogant in the extreme to imply they need a Learning Annex class to detect spam."

The question I have is to whom the term "arrogant" should be applied?

This is what my webhost said about my last SpamCop spam complaint, "As far as I know spam is generally considered to be high volume unsolicited email. So, as long as you are not doing that then I am not sure why it would be called spam."

CONCLUSION: While the anti-spammers rail on the ugliness of spam, it seems they are perfectly willing and likely prefer that the only people permitted to send email should be those they directly give permission to.

Personally, I find the practices of the radicals of SpamCop to be more offensive than the activities of the spammers. It is a terrible thing to say, I know, but the spammers simply irritate me and the SpamCop fanatics try to oppress my activities.

We all must make a choice, do we "stay home" or do we fight the oppressors who seek to diminish our freedom.

For other stories on this subject:

http://www.niba.shopmystate.com/
http://www.smithfam.com/news/june01m.html

Copyright Bill Platt - All Rights Reserved

Bill Platt is the owner of http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com

• When you are tired of the struggle of the link building process, it might be time to consider our "Links And Traffic" services.

This is not a link rental system or a reciprocal linking scam. We Guarantee our results.

There are some things that you can do to make your online experience a little bit easier. There are some ways to keep spam from ruining your day. Spam filters are one of those things.

Spam filters are an extremely successful way of managing or stopping unwanted emails, but occasionally they can work too well. While they can act very vigorously to keep your inbox from receiving spam, they can also prevent you from getting many of your wanted emails as well.

Some of the worst filter based systems for blocking spam are provided by your very own ISP. This can be a huge problem since these types of spam filters do not let you control which emails you can let through.

Essentially, these spam filters look for usual keywords and phrases like guaranteed, free, buy and so on. Once these systems recognize those key words, it will automatically prevent those senders from sending you emails again. That can be very frustrating if such a keyword is used by your friend or family member to describe the reason they are emailing you in the first place.

If you plan to use this type of method for spam prevention, you should get the type of spam filter that allows you to control what content is allowed and what should be deleted.

Do not be fooled by the “smarter filters” that are coming on the market since while they do get smarter over time and work especially well at preventing spam, they are very difficult for the average internet user to set up and use on a regular basis. So if you are not particularly tech-savvy, you should avoid these systems.

Visit Stop Spam Center for the latest news and information about how to block spam.

Hands down, email is the most widely used and loved computer application brought to life by the Internet.

According to the publication ‘Messaging Today’ (2000 Electronic Mailbox Report - Feb. 21, 2001), "Email is the most successful communications technology since the television, and in a few years will even surpass that. There are currently more than 891 million email accounts in use Worldwide and 440 million in the U.S. alone - with an average of more than 4 email accounts per person."

While more than 200 million of us use and enjoy email, there are a few thousand people abusing the system and damaging the communication potential of email for the rest of us.

SPAMMERS ARE THE ENEMY OF US ALL!

The most common forms of email abuse are as follows:

- Using email harvesters (software which gathers email addresses from the Internet for the purpose of sending spam messages).

- Selling the addresses gathered from an actual opt-in email list to someone who the recipient did not give contact permission to personally.

- Buying the Millions CD’s and then requiring people to opt-out of email, rather than to opt-in to the email.

- Providing remove addresses that do not work.

Generally, the persons using these spam techniques are morons who are simply too lazy to learn how to develop an honest online business or too impatient to build a business that will last a lifetime. Let us not forget that "moron" is the key word here since a spammers business will not generate enough income to justify the cost of doing business the outlaw way.

LAZY LIVES ON BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET!

Spammers spam because they are too lazy to build an online business the old-fashioned way — with honesty and integrity.

As a result of the spammers obnoxious laziness, the public has been confronted with the growing nuisance of hundreds of spam messages in their email boxes on a daily basis! I have filtered more than 100 pieces per day to my trash bin, and I still receive another 200 plus messages per day that I have not set up filters for yet.

While I will admit that spammers are truly annoying, I must confess that the general public has created new problems for all of us! In the war against spam, email account holders constantly suggest that their ISP’s must deal with the spam issue for them.

ISP’S RESPOND

By putting the responsibility of controlling spam on the shoulders of ISP’s, rather than hitting the delete key ourselves, we have opened a whole new can of worms.

In truth, ISP’s cannot do too much to stem the tide of spam. Yet, with so many angry customers, ISP’s felt a strong need to find some kind of solution to the problem.

ISP’s had one of two options:

- RBL (Realtime Blackhole List) http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/

- Installing Email Filters

Neither is a perfect solution to the spam problem… In fact, both are actually very poor solutions to the spam problem!

HOW SPAM FILTERS WORK

To understand the quandary created by the use of filters in the war against spam, we must first understand how spam filters work.

It is important to understand that filters are actually software applications.

Software is not intuitive!

While a few software applications may seem intuitive, the illusion exists only because the mind of the programmer was able to foresee your desires for the use of the software.

Filtering software exists only as a set of rules to determine the likelihood of a message being spam. Here is an outline of some of the basic rules that spam filtering software follows:

1. If the origination email server is different from the email server of the sender’s default email address, then it is likely spam.

2. If the email is delivered to more than 25 people, it is likely spam.

3. If the email originates from a specific server, then it is likely spam. (This is the only rule that the RBL follows.)

4. If the email originates from a specific country TLD (top-level domain), then it is likely spam.

5. If certain words appear in the Subject or Email Body, then it is likely spam. (This is where the real problems begin!)

THE PANDORA’S BOX OF THE SPAM WARS

ISP’s who choose the filter option will either install a filter on incoming email only, outgoing email only or a combination of both.

With the fifth basic rule in the spam filtering software that most ISP’s use, each ISP has a list of "spam words" that the software scans for.

A few of the simpler, more obvious "spam words" follow:

- HGH
- DVD
- Casino
- Gambling
- Porn
- Million
- Billion
- Viagra

The first time I had experienced the ugly filter problem was with my first ezine. My ezine was a computer support publication and upon the introduction of a major virus, I tried to send instructions to my list on how to identify the virus and to repair its damage. Unfortunately, my list server had blocked all messages that mentioned the name of the virus. (Never mind that the actual payload email never mentioned the given name for the virus!)

My second experience was in trying to send an article to a friend because I felt the content of the article was important for my friend to have. After seven attempts, I finally realized what the blocked "spam word" was. If you can believe it, the blocked word was Amazon.com !!!

Within the last 30 days, I had two outgoing emails blocked by my own ISP.

The first was being delivered to a client of mine to inform them that I had received their payment. The subject of the email was "Payment Received" (a common subject of spam messages) !!!

The second email hinged on an article I tried to deliver for another client. The dreaded "spam word" was "gold" !!! We had to change the name of the article to get the article past my own ISP’s filters.

THE PROBLEM IN A NUTSHELL

Richard Lowe, the owner of http://www.Internet-Tips.net says, "The Internet is communication. It’s as simple as that."

The problem with ISP filtering is that the ISP cannot know what we want to read and what we do not want to read. A single ISP has clients who use the Internet for business, health, family, research or any of a dozen different purposes.

The person who wants to use the Internet for family communications usually has no interest in business topics. And the online business person may have no interest in family tree software or health products.

Yet, the ISP has no choice but to block all kinds of "spam words" for the full range of communication subjects.

As a result, the family person may not see the information concerning family tree software or other items regarding home life, and the business person may not be able to receive information vital to the operation of their business.

THE SCOPE OF THIS PROBLEM

We email junkies tend to subscribe to ezines covering a wide range of personal preferences. Unfortunately, a large number of ezines are being blocked by ISP’s because ezines tend to meet at least two of the criteria built into most spam filters (#1, #2 and sometimes #5).

Once again, the fifth basic rule is the dangerous one.

Spammers are using more and more common words in their mailings that the ISP’s are beginning to block.

I can almost guarantee that if your own ISP was to turn off their spam filters for a month, you would get to see for the first time a large number of ezines that you subscribed to way back when, but have never seen before.

Sure, you would see a large increase in the spam coming into your email box, but you would also see all of the mail that you want to receive that you have not been receiving.

WHERE SHOULD WE GO FROM HERE?

If we rely upon our ISP’s to do the filtering for us, then we are committing ourselves to receive only the information that our ISP’s filters are able to let us receive. It is as simple as that.

It is like the news pundits on television say about the war on terrorism, "We have a choice between freedom and security. The more of one we have, the less of the other we will have."

We have two choices:

1. We turn back the tide of ISP controlled communication and accept the responsibility of setting up our own filters to eliminate the garbage in our inbox.

2. Or, we continue to rely upon our ISP’s to filter the spam by adding new words to their "spam word" lists, eliminating all personal control from our personal communications.

TURNING BACK THE TIDE WILL REQUIRE SOME CONCERTED EFFORTS

Our ISP’s have been asked for so long to be our "Big Brother" to stem the tide of spam. ISP’s have come to the point of believing that we are children who need to be protected from the "morons" who are destroying this incredible communications tool.

To turn back this tide, we must be ready and willing to accept the personal responsibility of controlling our own communications.

First, we must learn to use the tools included in our email software that permit us to set up our own filters. Once we have the basic understanding of how to set up our own email filters, we must progress to step two.

In step two, we must contact our ISP and let them know that we want to be responsible for ourselves. Our ISP must understand that we DO NOT want them to run spam filters on their email servers. We must declare that we do not them to baby-sit our communications for us. We must emphasize that we want to decide for ourselves what we want to read and what we do not want to read! We must emphasize that we would rather use our delete keys, than to rely upon their filters to not block any of our important communications.

You and I alone will not be able to convince our ISP’s to ditch the policy of acting as our "Online Big Brother". But, when enough of us have banded together and made our demands for open communications clear, ISP’s will have to take notice and turn off their filters for fear of losing their customer base.

If we permit ISP controlled filters to continue to grow unabated, the filters will eventually eliminate the real value of email as a communications tool.

We must take a stand to reverse the focus of the War Against Spam! We must take a stand now to reverse the tide, or we risk the very real death of email communication and the Internet!

For more information about the "War Against Spam", visit the following links:

http://PathTrax.com/x.pl/BP121,spam_war_crossfire
http://PathTrax.com/x.pl/BP121,Will_Email_Kill_Email

Copyright Bill Platt - All Rights Reserved

Bill Platt is the owner of http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com

• When you are tired of the struggle of the link building process, it might be time to consider our "Links And Traffic" services.

This is not a link rental system or a reciprocal linking scam. We Guarantee our results.

Unfortunately a spam filter has become a necessity for any computer that has email and accesses the internet. Spam, as it has been termed, is unsolicited email which is usually a part of mass commercial advertising campaigns. Essentially, it is junk email. In the offline world junk mail has been sent unsolicited for years. In the online world; however, it presents more trouble than a mailbox loaded with advertisements.

Without a spam filter, your email box will be literally loaded with junk mail if your email address has been in existence for very long. It seems to be something that just happens although giving your email address out, especially posting it on websites, seems to open the virtual door for a flood of junk mail. Even if you don’t give your email address out over the internet, you will likely receive spam at some time.

The reason that spam is such a problem is, the junk mail eats up electronic resources like memory and storage space. Also, it is not uncommon for spam to contain computer viruses that can effectively shut down a computer system, or bogus offers and scams that many people fall for. A spam filter aims to stop these junk messages before they come into an email inbox.

Even if the spam you are receiving is nothing more than advertisements, it can be time consuming to check your email and delete all of the irrelevant junk that you receive. Thus, having a spam filter can save you loads of time. Without having to sift through junk email to find the email messages that require your attention, you will be much more productive.

Since the dawn of the internet people have been fighting spam. Recognizing that it is truly a problem, laws have been passed in an attempt to curb it; however, those laws are often ignored and spammers send their unsolicited messages anyway. Thus, even with legislation in place a spam filter is still a necessary time saving tool that can also protect your electronic data from damage and loss.

The anti-spam act in the United States is referred to as the Can- Spam Act of 2003. The law doesn’t attempt to curb unsolicited email altogether, but rather aims to prevent deceptive practices so a spam filter is still needed even if the spam you receive doesn’t break the law. The act bans the use of misleading or deceptive header information and subject lines, requires that recipients of the email be given an option to opt-out of receiving the email, and requires that marketers include a notice that email is a solicitation or advertisement. It also requires that the sender provide a postal address.

If you engage in email marketing yourself, you need to be sure that the addresses you send email to are legitimate opt-in email addresses and not a harvested list. Otherwise, you may become blacklisted and have your information added to spam filters as a common spammer. Also, it is good to avoid the use of words that are commonly picked up by a spam filter and to inform subscribers and opt-in email recipients to add your email address to the safe list in their spam filter so your messages won’t get redirected or deleted.

A spam filter can be installed on individual computers, network servers or email servers. The purpose of a spam filter is to filter out the junk. A basic spam filter does a pretty good job of that, but none of them are all-encompassing or fail proof.

A spam filter intercepts messages that appear to be spam based on the spam filter’s configuration. This may include email from servers that are blacklisted, meaning they have been identified as senders of spam, certain email addresses or other terms set by the user. For instance, many spam messages contain the word "free", or other specific words that are easily identifiable. A spam filter can generally be set to intercept emails containing the specified words as well.

Depending upon how you configure your spam filter and the spam filter you choose, spam filters handle email accordingly. Some may deliver a message to the inbox while others will redirect the message and send it to another place, like a junk mail box. Some delete the message altogether or screen out parts of a message that may be offensive or viral.

A spam filter that redirects messages is sometimes a good idea because you can scan through the messages and make sure they actually are spam before they are deleted. However, this in itself can be a time consuming task and many choose to have the suspected spam automatically deleted.

With most spam filters, you can choose email addresses that are "safe" which will prevent the spam filter from destroying or redirecting a message from a certain email address or server. If you subscribe to newsletters from companies that may send out bulk email, it is a good idea to add the sender to your safe list so the information you requested will be ignored by your spam filter and delivered to your inbox.

Copyright Christopher J. Enders. Are you at the end of your rope, fed up and confused by all the scrambled internet marketing advice you’re getting? Whether you are new to internet marketing, or a website owner who wants to make more money from your website, learn the proven strategies that will sky-rocket your internet business at http://BiznessTips.com

With so much spam out there, how can you keep your inbox free from clutter? You might try an add-on anti-spam program. Although your email client probably comes with some built-in spam filtering, an add-on program enhances your system’s ability to identify spam and prevent it from infiltrating your mailbox.

When deciding whether or not to buy one of these add-on filters, consider a few questions:

How Much Spam Do You Get?

If you use your computer rarely, you may not get much spam. Check out your inbox. Is it usually free of spam? If so, your built-in filters may be enough spam protection for you.

Unfortunately, most of us use our computers on a regular basis and have fallen prey to spammers. Observe your inbox for a week or two and keep a log handy to record how much spam appears along with your legitimate email. Be sure to check your bulk mail folder for false positives as well. A false positive is a message identified by spam filters as a spam email even though it is from a legitimate or known source.

When you have your week-long results, look at the numbers. Are you missing important messages due to false positives? Is there an irritating number (even a few is irritating) of spam messages in your inbox? Do they contain offensive content? In most cases, an add-on spam filter could easily and cheaply clear up these problems.

What Type of Email Do You Get?

Spammers’ lists are filled with email addresses. If you subscribe to newsletters or participate in chat rooms or web groups, your address is a likely target. After signing up for these types of email, get ready for the spam invasion. Consider purchasing an add-on program to defend your inbox before the attack.

How Much Fraud Protection Do You Have?

Some of the best add-on anti-spam programs offer additional features for flagging and destroying phishing scams or other fraudulent messages. So many phishing scams pose as legitimate business emails that this protection is vital. Phishing scams are the most dangerous type of spam out there. Whether they pose as bank notices, PayPal messages, or eBay communication, phishing scams can hit your wallet and your well-being.

Check out your email client and see if it offers fraud protection. If your built-in filters consistently miss these emails and they end up in your inbox, you need fraud protection. Just opening one of these messages by mistake could compromise your system.

Test Drive

Once you decide to give an add-on filter a try, take advantage of free trials offered by vendors to test the program against your needs. Be sure to do your homework. The filter must be compatible with your operating system, such as Windows or Mac, and your email client, such as Outlook or Eudora. No program can keep spam out 100% of the time, but an add-on anti-spam program can keep most of the junk where it belongs.

Amy Durham is a full-time freelance writer specializing in business, IT, home decorating, gardening, and inspirational writing. Her work has appeared in Facility Manager, InStore, The Source, First Home, D Magazine, Texas Family Magazine, and several online publications. As an expert author, she ghostwrites original articles for website content, newsletters, blogs, and e-zines. She is also the author of an online inspirational course for writers and several e-books. Please visit her website http://www.MooJuiceMedia.com

With anti spam vendors offering low cost licensing, businesses can now afford advanced email spam and virus protection with a simple to use interface at a much lower cost. The great thing about technology is that as it evolves it gets faster, additional features and economical. Over the past few years the same evolution has taken place with anti spam technology and services. In large part this can be attributed to the open source software community plus enterprising companies enhancing the capabilities of this software and packaging it into easy to use anti spam appliances.

It is not practical to have anti spam software running on desktops in a networked business environment. Managing all employee junk email software at the desktop is not realistic. It can be a nightmare and costly in terms time and licensing.

Spam appliances sit in front of your email server so that when email comes in it will first go to the spam appliance and the email will be scanned for spam as well as viruses. The filter will block the message if it identified as know spam. If the filter is not sure if the email is genuine it will quarantine and hold the email at the filter and it will be stored until the recipient deletes it, releases it to their email box, or they can white list a trusted correspondent so that future emails will not be held back. This will greatly reduce the load on your email server and reduce your bandwidth needs. We have seen anti spam systems block up to 83% of incoming messages. This could help extend the life of your email server and push back the need for upgraded capacity.

Most virus outbreaks occur via email and for little cost an appliance can block viruses before they reach your network and user’s inboxes. This provides an extra layer of defense in addition to your current anti virus solution.

Businesses have two options if they use an appliance based solution for their spam and virus control. They can purchase and administer their own filter. This is a good option if you have a large number of employee mailboxes to protect and the technical staff to administer the spam appliance. Businesses also have the option to outsource their spam control as a hosted service. This is a good choice for smaller companies and if information technology is not your specialty.

If you purchase your own spam filter, a subscription to updates may also be required. Make sure you get upfront pricing for the add-ons that you will need. If you have more than 100 email users and the technical staff to maintain the spam appliance, buying your own filter may be your best option. Generally the basic model will work for most organizations. Large organizations with thousands of users will require a spam filter appliance with increases capacity and features. Spam appliances are designed to work with all mail systems but some do have specific enhancements for Exchange server Microsoft’s popular collaboration software and mail servers that support LDAP (light weight directory access protocol). Spam appliances use the LDAP protocol to verify recipients before delivering messages to your email server, this avoids consuming server resources.

If your business has five to one hundred employees, then an outsourced anti spam and virus filter service is going to be a good economical choice for your organization. Fees are based on the number of users and you only pay for what you use. You will not have hardware to buy, maintain, and upgrade. The upfront cost is minimal and most email filtering providers will let you try the service for free at first. Another added benefit to outsourcing your spam control is redundancy. It is important that you choose a provider that has their spam and virus filters colocated at secure internet data center facilities. Data centers provide redundant network connections and power, so if your email server or internet connection is down unexpectedly the spam appliance will hold your email until your email server becomes available, minus spam and viruses.

Anti spam technology is constantly improving and the costs are getting lower. With increased productivity and an added layer of defense against virus attacks, an anti spam appliance or service is something your business can not afford to be without.

John Tourloukis is the founder of Fast PC Networks an internet consulting and spam and virus filter service. we use technology to drive your business

The Federal Trade Commission has failed to curb SPAM in the last two-years since the CAN-SPAM Act was introduced. There is slightly less SPAM then before but this is hardly due to any efforts by the FTC. More so we can thanks folks like Bill Gates and Microsoft than anyone else for aggressively going after the SPAMMERS. When the George W. Bush, President of the United States of America signed into law the CAN-SPAM Act, he assigned authority to the FTC to go after illegal SPAM.

The Federal Trade Commission put its best people on the problem and what did they do? They held meetings and spent months and months defining what SPAM is. They spent time holding meetings around the country inviting Lawyers and start-up companies to figure out what should be done. We all know what happened? They finally came up with a definition and then filed 60 cases which is not even .1 % of the number of high profile SPAMMERS. We now find out that they embellished their complaints in court and attacked companies, which really were not the part of the larger problem. Why? Because they needed to make it look like they were doing something.

Today we have more SPAM now coming from overseas, which the CAN-SPAM cannot control. So what has the Federal Trade Commission been doing for two-years with regards to SPAM? Not a darn thing, but waste our taxpayers money and do a Public Relations Road Show to make them look good, but why bother? Well, next years budget will appropriations are coming. I recommend we cut the FTC budget by 50% this coming year and another 50% the following year of what is left. Why? Because they are a waste of panty space and blowing our taxpayer’s money on public relations and specially placed stories in the media to make themselves look good.

Let’s fire every Federal Trade Commission employee who worked on the SPAM issue in the last three years and if they are lawyers revoke their licenses. All should be let go without extended benefits or pensions. It is borderline treason the their assertion that they have taken a bite out of SPAM, all they have done is proven they cannot do anything very well and emboldened the SPAMMERS. Those who are the biggest in the SPAM area know the FTC is incompetent and hide under cover of darkness and laugh at all the media stories about how the FTC is attacking SPAM? Let’s face it the FTC have failed and they need to get the axe. No more wasted taxpayer’s money should be allotted for this agency. Think on it.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Recently the Department of Justice’s Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Portection Division has put forth a bogus report to Congress on their role in the CAN SPAM Act and stated in writing that SPAM has been reduced? Man in the online E-Commerce Industry believe this to be a complete fabrication, misrepresentation and bold face lie. Further many believe that those who work in the consumer protection division of the Federal Trade Commission cannot tell a lie from the truth as they so often file fake and bogus or doctored complaints in the court of law. I personally can document at least one case, I know of, yet have heard of such abuses in many industries.

One has to ask if the Federal Trade Commission with its half-breed lawyers who were not smart enough or good enough in school to get a private practice job understand that their ill-gotten gains and budgetary funds need to be returned to the American People and all those involved in this report need to lose their jobs and be barred from ever taking another paycheck from our government. Those who are lawyers in this division should lose their law licenses and be de-barred for life. We cannot have an agency, which sends out 8,800 press releases to toot their own horn, every time their incompetence fails the American people and this is my opinion on the matter. Think on that.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/