It’s a nightmare isn’t it? You fire up your email system first thing on Monday morning to be greeted with hundreds of new messages.

"Great", you say, "I’m so popular!"

But no - your email has been added to thousands of spammers’ lists, that’s all.

After exploring the seedy underworld of human growth hormones, get rich quick schemes and offshore investment accounts you’ll find you don’t have much energy left for anything else!

So - put a stop to the madness.

Can The Spam!

I found a great service provided by some clever people over in Australia.

It’s called SpamTrap and it does what it says on the tin.

You can sign up for a free trial and then it costs you a small sum to have the service on an ongoing basis.

There are other solutions to this growing problem but I find SpamTrap easy to use, no messing about and most important of all – it works!!!

I went from receiving approximately 200 spam messages a day on one of my accounts to receiving maybe one or two - and that’s on a bad day.

So How Does It Work?

The guys at SpamTrap will tell you more but at a basic level their nifty bit of software can recognise virtually every form of spam and ‘learns’ what is junk and what isn’t.

All email that is flagged as spam is stopped before it reaches you and if you’re the paranoid type you can take a look through it to make sure nothing legitimate makes it into the bin.

But, from the hundreds of emails I checked (initially) the SpamTram robots hadn’t made a single mistake.

Excellent Spam Blockers And Killers

SpamTrap - http://www.spamtrap.net.au

Block All Spam - http://www.blockallspam.com

Clean My Mailbox - http://www.cleanmymailbox.com

SpamArrest - http://www.spamarrest.com

Michael Cheney is Author of The Website Marketing BibleTM. Take the Free 7-Part Course "Internet Marketing Made Easy" and get your free sampler of ‘The Bible’ here: http://www.websitemarketingbible.com/marketing/

Spam can be a lot more damaging than you might think. Obviously, they are the most annoying thing that you can receive through your inbox, but it goes deeper than that. If you are like the millions of other internet email users, you know that sending and receiving email is a free service that comes with your internet service.

Internet service providers are great for providing you with a way to send letters to your friends and family while saving you the cost of postage and envelopes. You can even send cards for free with an email address. But don’t let the free service make you think that you don’t actually have to pay for it. Let me explain.

Internet service providers and web hosts do not get their email services for free. They have to pay for something that we do not have to pay for as consumers. They have to pay for bandwidth. That might not mean much to you, but for these companies, it means that they are forced to produce mass emails, and this means that their costs increase as well.

It may not seem to be a matter for the mere consumer, but let me tell you that this does affect you; here is how:

Since they are forced to send mass emails, which in turn raise their costs for service, you as the receiver are forced to pay more money for you internet service. This in a way helps ISP’s to reduce their overhead costs.

Some of the cheaper ISPs like Net Zero help to cut their costs down by charging outside companies money to spam and add those annoying pop-ups to your homepages. Since the advertisers are paying for their pop-ups, you get a break on the cost of using them as an ISP.

Other popular companies use affiliations to assist them with keeping their costs down, eventually leaving the consumer with a pretty good rate. I’d prefer to use an ISP that simply goes for the search engine affiliation as they have much better pop-up prevention on their side, and they actually provide you with a service.

Chris Hickman owns a site with the best advice about how to stop spam free. Check Out his site at http://www.how-to-stop-spam-free.com

In today’s spam-filled email world, it’s sometimes VERY difficult to get your news releases and PR pitches to the media person you are trying to reach. These tips hold true for personal emails, too, so even if you don’t do P.R., this article offers some important email tips.

Here are a few ideas to help you be more successful in reaching your target.

1. Write the release with spam filters in mind.

There are many words that trigger spam filters these days. Learn to write alternative words, substitute zeros for Os or add * in the word to avoid the spam trap. You can find out which words are likely to be a problem in this excellent list provided by Dr. Wilson: http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt8/spamfilter_phrases.htm

2. Check your content to see what your spam filter rating is.

There are free sources to check your email. One of them is Lyris Content Checker ( http://www.lyris.com/contentchecker/), which checks it against the SpamAssassin database.

3. Send each email individually, not as a CC or BCC.

The CC function allows everyone to see who you sent your email to so you definitely don’t want to do that. The reporters will get irritated when they see you have sent it to all of their competitors. As my grandmother used to say,"It’s better to keep some things to yourself."

The BCC function allows you to hide the list of recipients from everyone who receives the email, but it doesn’t hide it from the email programs and filters. These programs know that you are sending a BCC message to a list, and if you send it to 10 or more, it will automatically trigger the spam filter.

You can send your emails efficiently from many database programs. I use ACT! and it allows me to not only send to a group, with each email going individually, but it also keeps track of what I sent to whom.

There are also systems available, like the one I use to deliver my ezines (which comes with my 1ShoppingCart.com service), designed to send hundreds and thousands of emails all at the same time. And the best thing is, you can tailor your release to add personal details about each recipient, such as their name and the industry they cover. I use my shopping cart to deliver my newsletters, but you can also use a service like ConstantContact for this.

4. Include the recipient’s name in the subject line.

When someone sends me an email that begins, "Lois,…", I pay attention. I know that this person either knows me or I have subscribed to their ezine or asked to have them communicate with me for some reason. And I NEVER report these people as spammers. If I don’t want to continue receiving information from them, I politely unsubscribe or email them to take me off their list. Think about it. You respond better when someone uses your name, don’t you? It’s a terrific way to get someone’s attention.

5. Include [News] or [Pitch] in brackets at the beginning of the subject line.

Again, you need to give the reporter an easy way to spot your news as legitimate. So tell them up front you are sending them news or a pitch and watch your email delivery rate soar.

6. Include the reporter’s column or beat in the first paragraph.

A reporter is always going to pay more attention to your pitch if you are one of their faithful readers. If you start out your email with something like, "Jane, in last week’s Cooking for One column, you said…", you will surely get the reporter’s attention.

7. Include all your contact information

Nothing’s worse than getting an email that you want to respond to immediately and having no way to contact the person except by email. Give the reporter all your phone numbers. And don’t forget your physical address and website domain. Make it easy for them to contact you.

8. Never include any attachments.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave without Internet access, you know that attachments are the way that most worms and viruses are spread on the Net. Windows XP strips off most attachments, and most corporate entities don’t allow attachments to come through their systems. They can even get you blacklisted so your emails cannot get through. So don’t be stupid. Don’t send attachments unless someone asks for them.

9. Provide a link to your website to download photos, graphics, graphs, bios and other background information.

Just about anything that you need to deliver to a reporter can be uploaded to your website. You can include product photos, people photos (remember to make them 300 dpi for print/ 72 dpi for online and in various sizes, so that the media can choose which size they want to use), bios, background information, sample chapters, and even an entire digital book. If the reporter wants you to send the product or a physical book, then you’ll have to mail that, of course.

10. Always include a subject line, but never put "Hi" or"Hello" in the subject line, especially alone.

Emails without subject lines are usually spam, and those that say hi or hello are usually viruses, so no one is going to open them. Be thorough. Include a subject line.

11. Follow CAN-SPAM rules and allow an easy unsubscribe method to your email list.

Even if you don’t include a one-click unsubscribe, you should at least include a statement that tells the reporter how they can get off the list or let you know that their beat has changed. A simple statement that says, "To get off this subscriber list, simply hit ‘reply’ and put ‘remove’ in the subject line" will suffice. And don’t forget to include your name and address.

Lois Carter Fay, APR, is a 30-year veteran in the P.R. and marketing field. She now produces three marketing ezines, Brainy Tidbits, Brainy Flash, and Success Secrets of Women Entrepreneurs. All are free.

Visit http://www.MarketingIdeaShop.com or http://www.WomenMarketing.com to subscribe and claim your free special report.

Even being as careful as possible with my email address, I still used to receive more than 100 email messages a day, which is no exaggeration. Only about 10% of those emails were from people that I knew and the rest of the messages were unwanted email…”spam”. And I’m sure you can relate to my frustration. It is estimated that over seventy-six billion unwanted email messages were delivered in 2003, costing companies more than $10 billion each year.

So How Do They Get Our Email Addresses?

In making online purchases, you should always realize that your email address could be given or sold, regardless of what the merchant’s privacy policy may state. Even filling out an online survey or registering your email address to become a member of a web site is subject to having your email address given away. Also, there are spider programs that spammers use that search the web and “harvest” email addresses, much like search engine spiders do when they acquire web site information.

Tips To Avoid Getting Spam

1. Don’t Click "Unsubscribe": On the bottom of some spam emails you will find an “Unsubscribe” link. Some of these are legitimate links, while others are tools to indicate that your email address is valid. Unsubscribing could actually result in getting more unwanted email.

2. Spam Filtering: Some ISPs or domain services carry spam filtering options, and there are filters and rules you can use in some email programs (i.e. Microsoft Outlook, Eudora and Apple’s Mail OSX). While no spam filtering program can eliminate spam completely, it can greatly reduce the amount of spam you receive. But you must be careful in using any sort of spam filtering mechanism, as you may ultimately filter out some of your wanted email.

3. Get Two Email Addresses: Use your primary email address for business or personal use, and the other for making online purchases and for filling out web site registration information.

4. Update Your Web Site: The best overall solution is to have people contact you through a form on your web site, as your email address is not so easily revealed. If you must have direct links to your email address on your site, consider having a link that simply reads "email" or "contact" instead of spelling it out on a web page.

There are many simple methods that you can use to help reduce the amount of spam coming through to your business. By using these tips, you will not only save yourself time and money, but you will ultimately send a strong message to the people send unwanted email.

About The Author

Edward Robirds is a success-driven artist and interactive media developer based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Since 1996, Edward has been building business relationships with several association and commercial clients around the world. Founder of www.DreamseaArtworks.com, Edward uses his artistic skills, expertise and passion to design and develop web sites, interactive CD-ROMs, and print media for his clients.

mail@dreamseaartworks.com

If you’re anything like me, you’re pretty sick of it, and just want it to stop. What? Spam, of course. This article gives you a solution to radically, and quickly, reduce the amount of spam messages you receive to a bare minimum.

Personally, I get hundreds of unsolicited spam emails every single day, inviting me to enlarge this, reduce that, pay off my debt with another debt (how does that work?)… you know the type.

I’m also subscribed to dozens of ezines as part of continuing research and keeping my ‘finger on the pulse’ - and apart from those that stand out from the crowd and offer really valuable information, I’ve mostly forgotten which ones I’m subscribed to, and which ones are unsolicited.

The danger is of course that by clicking the unsubscribe link on pure spam messages, you’re often just confirming your existence to the spammer. So unless I’m really sure it’s a genuine unsubscribe link, I steer well clear, which of course doesn’t help my email levels.

The issue is really about email messages I want to read, versus those I don’t - and what to do with those that I don’t want to read.

Sorting through them manually would take hours every day, which for most people is clearly impractical - so I looked for solutions that would help me out, and came across one that works very well for me.

As a result, I now get just a few relevant emails that I actually want, or need, to read, ready and waiting for me in my Inbox - with the rest already deleted off in my ‘Deleted’ folder.

So, what’s the solution?

The secret is to use Artificial Intelligence. No, not robots and sci-fi warriors, but the artificial intelligence of your very own PC. Sounds crazy? No, it’s very real, and very effective.

In fact, it’s your very own Spam-Sniffing Cyber-Pet, that stops spam in its tracks - you don’t have to feed, water or walk it, you just need to spend a bit of time training it to distinguish between the messages you do, and don’t, want to read.

It can take a couple hours at first, and then you’ll start noticing your spam dropping rapidly. Take a few minutes a day for a week or so, and I can practically guarantee your spam will have dropped by 98-99%. That’s what I call an excellent investment of your time.

After that, you’ll only need to spend a few minutes every now and again to keep your Spam-Sniffer’s training up to date. For example, if you get a message in the wrong place, just tell your Cyber-Pet, and it should filter it correctly next time.

Most of the time, this filtering is over 95% accurate - the more consistently you train it, the higher this accuracy level is. In fact, I can now go weeks without doing a thing - and my spam levels stay the same, i.e. exceedingly low.

The good news is that this solution is one-hundred percent free, and works on pretty much any operating system. According to New Scientist magazine, it "…does a wonderful job".

All you need is a modicum of technical knowledge to set it up, and the patience to let it work its magic on your Inbox.

Here’s the URL: http://popfile.sourceforge.net/.

It’s a free download, and for once, after months of using it, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of ‘catch’.

What’s more, it’s literally saved me hundreds of hours over the past year, and is well worth the small investment of time and effort up front.

About The Author

Steve Shaw is the developer of PopUpMaster Pro, which allows you to add unblockable popups to your web site quickly and easily, specifically designed to sign up subscribers to your list, and fast. => http://popupmaster.com.

Steve has been marketing full-time online since March 2002, developing software products and systems for e-marketing, including PopUpMaster Pro, the Click Bank Toolkit, and most recently, the free list building system at ListInferno.com.

A friend of mine received a chilling email message from his ISP the other day. Someone had reported him as sending SPAM and the ISP warned that an additional SPAM complaint would result in losing his hosting service - period. No ifs, ands or buts!

The ISP just took the word of the person filing the complaint as gospel, even though my friend had the email subscription notification where this person, or someone posing as them, had subscribed.

My friend sent me a copy of the subscription notification. And sure enough, there it was as plain as day… it contained the date, time and the subscription IP address of the person making the Spam allegation. Unfortunately, all this evidence fell on deaf ISP ears.

This little incident firms my conviction that a federal CAN- SPAM law might not be a bad idea after all. Without it, persons alleging Spam, like the one above, may be able to sue under State law. And that’s where the nightmare begins…

Oh sure, the person will most likely end up losing the case but here’s the typical situation. The "injured party" files a lawsuit and the ISP immediately shuts off service to the publisher. And guess what, the publisher is immediately out of business even though she/he is sitting there with evidence that the allegation is totally groundless. Talk about scary! And if you think this scenario can’t happen to you - think again.

The erroneous reporting of Spam has become wide-spread and has gotten even easier. Don’t like a company or their products? Just accuse them of spam. Do it a couple of times in one week and, guess what, they’re off line - period.

AOL and Yahoo owners can simply click a button and report anything they feel like as Spam - with no consequence whatsoever if the allegation is totally baseless. The "This is Spam button" has replaced the delete key as "the" answer for some folks. And I’ll bet you’d have a hard time tracking down whomever made the initial AOL or Yahoo Spam complaint as well.

Time to Get Tough

There are several proactive steps you can take to protect yourself against baseless Spam allegations. Admittedly, there is nothing you can do to stop someone bound and determined to damage your reputation and business if they have a mind to do so. You can, however, certainly minimize the risk of this happening to you. But you do have to be proactive.

I recommend that you add a legal notice to your subscription Thank You page and also to every ezine newsletter issue that you send out. Something along the lines of the following…

"The subscriber agrees, by accepting this email newsletter subscription, to indemnify the publisher against false accusations of spam to include, but not limited to, payment of all damages, loss of web hosting fees and services, all damages for loss of business and goodwill, and any and all fees or fines that may be imposed against the publisher by any federal, state, local authority or civilian business entity as a result of the false spam accusation."

Add the paragraph above, or something similar, just above your ezine unsubscribe link.

The reason I think this is a powerful solution is because it establishes a contract between the publisher and the subscriber. And contract law is pretty much the same in all jurisdictions when it comes to breach of contract.

Please note that what I have provided you is for guidance and informational purposes only and should not be construed as practicing law. Do check with your local attorney to make sure that this statement will suffice in your jurisdiction. But I think you get the idea.

Is this concept new? Hardly, jl Scott of the iCOP organization thought of this over two years ago. Will it scare some of your subscribers off? You bet it will. But guess what…

The people it scares off are exactly the people you DON’T want on your list anyway. They most likely have the itchy moronic fingers or the "I’ve had a bad day let’s accuse someone of Spam and get them shut down" folks that you don’t want to have anything do to with anyway.

Listen, perhaps it’s just me, but I wouldn’t be fazed in the least if I saw such a caveat on an ezine I really wanted to sign up for. Would you? I only want people on my list who are responsible and willing to accept the consequences of their actions. People who, if they mistakenly accuse me of Spam and got my business erroneously shut down, would face up to their responsibility and pay for the damage they caused. I don’t want a Spam Nazi on my list who is too lazy to hit the delete key. No thanks!

Rough? Yes, but that’s the reality of doing business on the Internet today.

Other Options Available

Paul Hancox of UpYourMarketing.com has just released a brilliant report that outlines several other steps any prudent publisher online should take to protect themselves and their online business. It’s called "The ePublishers Survival Kit - How to Minimize Spam Complaints and Defend Yourself Against False Spam Accusations."

http://www.writersnest.com/spampro.zip

The report is in pdf format so MAC and WIN users alike can access the information. Combine these recommendations with those in Paul’s report and you’ll pretty much be covered.

Final thoughts. I don’t have to remind you of how hard you worked to build your online business. Protect yourself and minimize the risk of having it suddenly shut down by following the recommendations here and in Paul’s free report.

While you can’t stop malicious Spam complaints 100%, taking proactive steps now can go a long way to making sure your business remains safe and viable. Believe me, that’ll make you sleep much better at night!

About The Author

Malacka - Copyright 2003

http://www.writersnest.com

Stuff that Really Works to Make You Money Online!

http://www.hot-matches.com

http://www.dog-training-at-home.com

Feel free to distribute this article so long as it remains unedited and the resource box is included.

Are you getting too much spam? We all are, but if you’re a webmaster the word spam takes on a whole new meaning.

It’s not uncommon for the luckiest of email users to receive a dozen or so spam messages each day, while those of us who aren’t so fortunate receive hundreds.

The casual home user tends to be more fortunate, so this article is devoted to those of us with one or more website because webmasters are getting hit by spam … and hit hard.

The reason … a website doesn’t do you much good if you don’t give potential customers a way to contact you, and that normally means posting an email address on your website, where it is vulnerable to email address harvesting tools used by spammers. Domain registration records are also a common source used by spammers.

In order to conduct business online you now need to sift through the endless barrage of offers for herbal viagra, pornography, pyramid schemes, and so on.

With such a large volume of spam to contend with, it’s likely you’ve lost sales due to missing important emails that simply floated away in this sea of spam. And there’s no way to really calculate the cost of that lost business. If you’ve missed email then how can you ever know how much business you’ve lost?

If you want to solve the problem, you need to be proactive because the sad reality is that if you do nothing, it will only get worse until finally it reaches the point where your email account has become totally and completely unmanageable. Fortunately there are a few options available to you.

Securing Your Domain Registration Against Spammers

First let’s address the whois database, which is a publicly accessible database in which your domain registration record is listed … and that includes your email address. It’s not uncommon now for people to be spammed at a brand new email address within hours of registering a new domain.

Go Daddy http://www.godaddy.com is a domain registrar that now offers private domain registrations. At the time of writing this article, they are the only registrar who currently offers this service. Hopefully in time, other registrars will pick up on this idea and offer the service too.

With a private domain registration, which costs only a few dollars more than a regular registration, your contact information including your email address will not be publicly accessible in the whois database.

That’s guaranteed to cut down on spam quite significantly as this very important source of addresses that spammers use, will no longer provide your address to them.

If you don’t wish to obtain a private domain registration, then there is another option that will be equally effective. Set up a new email address that you use only for the purpose of providing registration information for your domain name. You can easily scan email sent to that address for messages from your registrar, and delete the rest without having to read it.

Securing Your Website Against Spammers

The other major source, and by far the biggest source of email addresses for spammers is of course the mailto links on your own website. Email address harvesting or extraction software as it’s known is cheap, easy to use, and readily available … and it’s very effective. That means there are a lot of spammers out there with easy access to your email address.

Chances are hundreds or even thousands of spammers using such software have already harvested your address. And what can you do about this? You need to provide a way for your customers to reach you by email, or you’ll lose business. There are steps you can take to prevent your email address from being harvested and used by spammers though, while still providing legitimate visitors to your site with a way to email you.

One solution is to make all the mailto links on your site point to a form instead, which will still provide a means for people to send you email. Provided you use a CGI script that doesn’t require the address to be embedded within the form itself, you can shield your address from email address extractors.

If you don’t want to require people to fill out a form to email you from your website, then you can get a little more creative. It is possible to put a mailto link on your site that when clicked will still launch the sender’s email program, and start a new message with your address in the To field … but without having to embed your email address in the mailto link where spam software can snatch it. Click below to see an example of how it works.

http://thewebhostcompany.com/cgi-local/email.cgi

It looks like a normal URL, and there’s clearly no email address anywhere in the link, but when clicked, instead of loading a web page in your browser as you may have expected, your email program opens up.

How’s that possible you might ask? Simple. A little magic with CGI using Perl or PHP will do the trick. A free copy of a script that does this is bundled with Postmaster Pro, available at http://www.postmasterpro.com which is discussed below.

What About Spammers Who Already Have My Address?

So far we’ve discussed a few fairly simple techniques designed to prevent spammers from obtaining your email address in the first place. But, how do you deal with the spam you’re already getting? Your address is already out there. The solution is to either block or filter.

For either, you’ll need software. For blocking, I recommend Postmaster Pro. If you prefer to filter then Spam Assassin is highly recommended. Both run on the server, so there is no need to download spam before filtering it out. That’s a huge time saver if you’re not yet on a high-speed connection. It also makes it a bit less likely you’ll end up downloading a virus since email from untrusted senders, i.e. spammers will be significantly reduced.

Spam Blocking Software

Postmaster Pro which is available at http://www.postmasterpro.com takes a novel approach to blocking spam. It only allows email to be delivered after people who’ve sent you email have been placed on an approved sender list. But the interesting thing is that people who send you email can put themselves on your approved list. This is done simply by clicking a link in an email that automatically gets sent to them the first time they send email to you, which is perfect for those of us who don’t know in advance whom we should put on the approved list, i.e. if you’re running a business online. It also makes building and maintaining such a list very simple.

Given the fact that spammers normally use invalid return addresses, and those who do use valid return addresses seldom read email that’s sent there, let alone respond to it (they receive thousands of failed delivery notifications, complaints, remove requests, and autoresponder messages every time they do a mailing) … it’s a very effective technique with no chance of blocking legitimate email, as is the case with filtering.

Spam Filtering Software

For those who would prefer to filter … Spam Assassin is perhaps the best option. It is available at http://www.spamassassin.org. Once you have Spam Assassin installed, it will provide you with very powerful and flexible filtering tools. Spam Assassin is a mature product, having been around for quite some time. If you’re going to filter, Spam Assassin is about as good as it gets.

As with any filter though, you do run the risk of missing legitimate email from time to time. There really isn’t a good way to tell how often this is happening unless you want to read all the email that gets filtered out, which negates the whole point of filtering. If you set your filters permissively enough though, you should be reasonably safe. For the first month or so after installing any filter, you should continue to read every single email in order to make sure it isn’t set too restrictively to allow legitimate email through.

By using the techniques mentioned in this article, you can take back your mailbox, and dramatically reduce, if not eliminate spam.

About The Author

Sean Proske is the CEO and founding partner of thewebhostcompany.com which has provided reliable and affordable hosting since 1996.

sproske@thewebhostcompany.com

5 Ways Spam Is Affecting Your Business And what we can all do to prevent it.

If you had only just got online, and received your first few emails, you may be forgiven for thinking you had hit paydirt.

You would already have heard how you won millions on a foreign lottery, then some benevolent foreigner wants to give you more millions because a relative has died and he needs help to get his inheritance, and you’re someone he can trust. And as luck would have it, those personal body parts you don’t discuss with anyone are actually too small, but a few people can help you with that for a very low fee. And you have all that Cas.h coming so…..

But you’re a seasoned veteran, and none of that is worth your time, it’s just so much spam.

You probably don’t even see any of it.

Don’t give it a second thought.

Maybe you need to.

It is because it is so easy and cheap to send email that you as a marketer want to use it,and spammers selling dodgy pills want to exploit it. They send out a million untargeted messages in a few hours, and rely on the fact that even if only 1 or 2 % of the people they sent it to bu.y their wares they will be in Profi.t.

You try to send a more targeted mailing, but due to the spammers all email is being vetted more carefully, and spam is hurting all of our businesses, even responsible marketers like you who wouldn’t even think about using it.

Here are the 5 reasons you should consider the implications of spam more carefully.

1 The time it takes to sort your emails is increased, but you can always use filters or antispam software. Which brings us to

2 False positives in antispam software means, if you don’t check the filtered out spam, you may miss a valuable contact from a customer. So you have to check it all anyway.

3 Your customers use spam blockers, or their isps do so you need to rethink your newsletter or email to your list of prospects so you don’t trigger theirs.

4 Due to the amount of people you can reach with email, you are more likely to encounter someone who reports you for spam even after they signed up and double opted into your newsletter. Result:- your domain gets blacklisted, and you spend time undoing the damage.

5 People are more wary about giving their e-mail addresses out so it’s harder work getting them to sign up for your newsletter in the first place. You need an easy to find privacy promise on your site.

Because so many people have used spam to sell their products, we all suffer.

Even with all these spam related problems, email remains a viable and usable option for Online marketin.g, but it needs a bit more care than it did before.

Governments may be stepping in and passing laws to outlaw spam, but the spammers themselves will move their servers to a safe place with a more tolerant government. We need to do our bit to keep email as an advertising option and play safe.

Consider putting your newsletters online and sending a short email with the link to the latest issue in it. Never bu.y from a spammers email, and despite some advice you may have seen to the contrary it is unwise to try to reply to unsubscribe, that just proves they have an email address which is live.

Be careful where you get leads from if you bu.y them, some unscrupulous companies will sell you email lists harvested straight from website mailto links.

CD’s full of 1000’s of names are not a good buy to market to, they will have been sold and sold again, and the people whose email addresses are on them will have been sent too many offers already.

Always email responsibly, and ensure you give people a plain privacy link, and an even more plain unsubscrib.e link in every email.

Douglas Titchmarsh runs several websites, and blogs including http://www.cashinonline.info and http://www.titchmarsh.com

Do you like spam? No, I’m not kidding. Everybody knows what spam is, almost everybody seems to have learned by heart simple advice like "do not click …" "do not respond…" , "do not buy…" but–

On March 23, 2005 Mirapoint and the Radicati Group, a consulting and market research firm, released preliminary results of their end-user survey on email hygiene. "This preliminary data is surprising and somewhat shocking to us," said Marcel Nienhuis, market analyst at the Radicati Group.

The survey shows that some end users haven’t learned the lesson and still make the same blunders.

Blunder 1 — clicking on embedded links within spam (not including the unsubscribe link) — 31% of respondents have done it at least once. The most dangerous mistake.

Clicking on any embedded links in spam messages helps spammers determine ‘live’ email accounts, which means more spam. What’s worse, users can pick viruses, Trojans or other malicious code–just by clicking on embedded links. It may cause various problems, including loss of confidential information–identity theft, and loss of money from bank accounts as a result.

Users shouldn’t forget about such threat as phishing. Not long ago, on February. 15, 2005, it was the Radicati Group that pointed out –fraud and phishing types of email are one of the fastest growing segments of spam. In the first quarter of 2005 the Radicati Group expects fraudulent emails to reach 8% of all spam.

Blunder 2 — trying to unsubscribe to spam using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in the email — 18% of respondents

Some users are naive enough to think that spammers really won’t send any junk mail to their addresses if they tell them not to. Haven’t they heard that spammers use the unsubscribe link solely to identify active email accounts. When individual email addresses or entire domains are found to be active, they are doomed to flood of spam.

Blunder 3 — What’s more: Over 10% of respondents have purchased products advertised in spam. Sending out huge volumes of spam is very cheap, so let’s face it–spam is an effective means of advertising. Spam is booming, and these 10% users who actually bought anything advertised by spam, are partly to blame for it.

The consequences can be very serious when such a user is at work. Online criminals find more and more ways of stealing valuable information, some of these techniques include spam. Spam filters won’t solve the whole problem; much still depends on end users. Marcel Nienhuis, analyst from the Radicati Group, was absolutely right when said " no technology in the world can protect an organisation if users’ exercise bad email behaviour."

Alexandra Gamanenko currently works at Raytown Corporation, LLC—an independent software developing company. This company provides software capable of disabling information-stealing modules, which can be hidden inside spyware as well as viruses, worms and Trojans. Learn more — visit the company’s website http://www.anti-keyloggers.com

There are hundreds of thousands of people who are trying to make an honest living on the Internet these days. The Internet is a great opportunity for starting your own business. There is not a lot of start-up cost, you can reach the whole world from a small corner of your own house, and the income can be exceptional.

However, a lot of us publishers and Internet marketers are running into a serious problem.

Before I start talking about it, I want to ask you all a question - How many of you get junk snail mail? Everyone, right? Now, how many of you call the cops when you get it? None, right? Of course not because that would be ridiculous!

We simply throw it in the trash and forget about it. Very easy, right?

What I don’t understand is why it is not as simple as that with your email. We have all received junk email, also known as sp~m. Just junk mail of the Internet, right? So why do so many people make such a big deal about it??? I know that reputable publishers and marketers have been reported to "sp~m cops" and were caused serious problems because of it. And why? Not because they have done anything wrong, but because a subscriber forgot they subscribed to the ezine or they forgot they requested information or some other foolish reason.

Now we have to deal with a thing called "sp~m filters"! Not only do these "filters" keep legitimate ezines, emails, reports, etc. from going through, but the amount of sp~m has only increased! These "filters" are also causing many problems for publishers and subscribers alike!

I have also had an experience of being reported for sp~m. Someone requested one of my articles by autoresponder. Well, they received the article and then a couple of days later a follow-up thank you note. Apparently this thank you note pi**ed them off because they reported me to my ISP. I then received a phone call from my ISP telling me my email account was going to be cancelled immediately! Well, it took me awhile, but I finally was able to explain that the person who received that email had to have requested my article by autoresponder. There was no other way he could have gotten that message.

So, I was able to save my account, but I know of several people who didn’t get off so easy.

I rarely gripe about anything like this because I know a lot of computer problems are out of our control, but this is a problem caused by people, not machines!

This is really getting out of hand…..so I have come up with a very simple yet effective idea for getting rid of sp~m! Are you ready for this???

Ok, first you click on the sp~m message in your inbox. Make the determination ( be sure now) that it is, indeed, sp~m. Then you stick up your index or other finger if you prefer ( be nice now) and push the magic button marked D-E-L-E-T-E. This will make the sp~m magically disappear!

I have used this method of sp~m destruction since starting on the Internet and have found it to be most effective. I receive hundreds of sp~m messages a day, but always manage to make each and every one disappear forever!

I also have some tips for people who do not want to receive any so-called sp~m:

1. Do Not subscribe to any newsletters!
2. Do Not sign-up for special offers!
3. Do Not request any information via autoresponder!
4. Do Not send any email to anyone at anytime!
5. Do Not use your email for any reason whatsoever!

I assure you if you follow all these tips you will never receive any sp~m!

I know I have been a little ridiculous in making my point, but that just is my point. All this hullabaloo about sp~m is ridiculous. It is simply junk mail and can be deleted without any trouble, hassle or problems!

Try it a few times and you will soon be like me - I have the fastest delete finger in the Midwest!! Anyone care to challenge me??

Wishing you a wonderfully warm and joyous Christmas!

About The Author

Terri Seymour owns and operates MyOwnEzine.com.

Learn to publish and promote your own ezine. mailto:subscribe@myownezine.com.

For a complete list of her articles available for reprint please email: mailto:myownezine-index@getresponse.com

You can contact her at mailto:ter02@newnorth.net