One of our Australian clients sent out a campaign using a list which had been complied manually.

The message contained information relevant for the specific job position that these recipients held. It had the sender’s details, a functional (and automated) unsubscribe link, real "from" and "reply" addresses and manual unsubscribes were actioned and replied to immediately. It was personalised with name, Company and position.

Did they have express consent from the recipient? No.

Was it Spam? No

According to the Australian Spam Act 2003, our client was able to send these targeted recipients information relevant to their positions. This is what is referred as "Inferred Consent".

However, even though the campaign was entirely in accordance with the legislation, many of the recipients responded with "This is Spam" replies.

What went wrong? Nothing….other than readers expectations.

Australian, American and European readers expect a simplified solution to the current Spam problem. Hence, when the relevant legislations came into being in each country, the readers immediately (and wrongly) thought that any communications sent to them other than what had been specifically requested must be Spam. Similar to the Australian Legislation (Spam ACT 2003), the USA (CAN Spam ACT) and the EU Anti-Spam Legislation, provide avenues for businesses to conduct legitimate marketing campaigns to corporates (as opposed to the general public). So, rather than asking the obvious question, such as: Is this the end of all direct marketing email campaigns? I believe we should be asking: How can we educate the public?

Readers need to be educated on the difference between permission and non-permission email. It seems that the once starkly obvious line between permission-based emails and Spam is fading in our readers minds, causing endless problems for emailers - not only the obvious problems such as blacklisting, but other more insidious problems such as ROI and maintaining clean lists.

Most of the causes of the publics distrust are of course, rightly attributed to Spammers - real Spammers.

Consumers have been told repeatedly not to reply to, or unsubscribe from, Spam, for fear of confirming that their address is "real" and therefore being added to Spam lists. This thought, in turn has encompassed anything that hinted at a whiff of Spam, with no consideration for permission-based email.

These are the readers who press their "this is Spam" button at anything doubtful or unwanted without a second’s hesitation. They are also the reason for the growing amount of unopened email rates, as they are finding it easier to simply delete and report instead of unsubscribing to a newsletter they once signed up for. One such filtering program that is enabling the reader to do this is Mailwasher.

For the average email user, Mailwasher is an easy to use program to filter out Spam emails from legitimate emails. Unfortunately, it is also perfect for filtering your unwanted emails as well - emails that the reader once was interested in receiving, but now is not. With a click of the mouse, the once requested email is deleted on the server (i.e. it does not get recorded as being opened in your statistics), bounced (this is why your bounce rates are growing and your open rates are declining) AND reported to SpamCop - all with one click and 1 second of deliberation (or less). What’s more, Mailwasher is free. I thoroughly recommend you download a copy and see for yourself how easy it is for your readers to blacklist you: www.mailwasher.net.

Some things you can do to minimise complaints:

1. Have a complaint system in place

This should be preferably manned by a person, not automated, so the complainant knows that you are taking them seriously. A reply ideally needs to be done in the same day as the complaint, and it needs to be positive rather than negative in tone. Be understanding, whilst clarifying that you have followed the legislative requirements and assure them that they will receive no further email communications from your company. THEN IMMEDIATELY, unsubscribe them from your database.

2. Have as much personalisation within the email as possible.

True Spammers don’t have actual lists of email addresses. They create lists using dictionary attacks. Once they have emailed the list created using the above method, they pull the bounces, and then reuse the "good" addresses. Because of this, they are not able to personalise the emails at all, hence servers and personalise filters are set to stop any emails which do not include any personalisation. Therefore personalisation helps on 3 main levels:

• Helps to get through the filters and actually arrive in the recipient’s mailbox.

• Helps the recipient to identify that is not Spam as it is addressed to themselves in various ways.

• The more personalising of the email the better - not only in name, company, position, member number etc but also in tailoring content to suit the person therefore reducing the likelihood of the recipient growing tired of receiving your communications.

3. The readers must be educated.

This will only happen in time - and only from using a combination of good emailing etiquette will they be assured that it is safe to unsubscribe from a newsletter they no longer want rather than delete and report. Most people that call you a spammer do so because they don’t know the legislation. We, as marketers need to be aware of the need of educating our readers.

4. Automate the unsubscribe method.

Why do readers delete/bounce/report when tired of receiving the email instead of unsubscribing? Because it’s easy. So, make it as easy as possible for your recipient to unsubscribe. It’s a mistake to try and keep them on your list by means of a complicated unsubscribe method. You want a clean list -you only want people on your list who are potential buyers etc. By having a clean list you are better able to: deliver accurate reports, market research -understand what your customers are wanting and reduce the risk of being reported as a spammer and being blacklisted.

5. Inform them how you received their information.

Be open with them. The more you hide, the more you will look like a spammer in their eyes.

Don’t be discouraged. As with all things, the more learned we (and our clients) become with regards to the Spam legislature, the easier it will be to conduct successful email marketing campaigns. The more marketers comply with the legislature, the more responsive our readers will be as well as learning to distinguish between Spam and genuine email marketing.

Kath Pay is Marketing Director of Ezemail, a web-based e-communications tool, which enables you to create, send and track your email marketing and SMS messaging campaigns. For more information please go to http://www.ezemail.com or contact Kath at: kath@ezemail.com

As most small, medium and large businesses in this country have seen the SPAM Emails have hurt our productivity and caused excessive costs.

Here are a few very interesting web links on this issue and the FTC report on SPAM to Congress.

http://www.ftc.gov/reports/dneregistry/report.pdf

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/32739.html

http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_i…64552&area=news

It is true that a DO NOT SPAM list is not going to fly, it would simply be used by the SPAMMERS. So then we need a plan of attack. Literally. It was recently estimated that SPAM is costing American Businesses over 54 Billion a year in lost productivity. We need to take out SPAM.

Remember in the movie "Rambo" where Sly went into the Communications tent with a 50 Caliber Machine Gun in his arms and destroyed the communication systems? Well, then how about Navy Seals, Green Barets, Special Forces, SWAT Teams, in black helicopters lower down the ropes and take out the evil do’ers, which are causing this distrust in our systems of communications. A limited war on SPAM taken to those who wish to disrupt all we are and all we have built, we have come to far and sacrificed too much to allow a melt down of our society due to SPAM.

Any civilization to succeed needs proper systems of commmunication, transportation, distribution, education, common currency-unit of trade and that which is needed to sustain life. When any of these are disrupted the whole of that civilization is at risk. We cannot allow this to continue, we need a war on SPAM, similar to the war on drugs. Attack the VR world by attacking those systems used by Spammers in the real world. By attacking these things early on, we send out a message to the Spammers that we mean business. There will be cheering in the streets every time the number of SPAM mail goes down.

It is an act of terrorism to send out SPAM, and SPAM which is coming from outside the country on servers in China, Nigeria, Caribean, or anywhere in the world is a form of International Terrorism and it is no worse than the attacks on our other infrastructures in the US or abroad. No worse than an attack on a pipeline, refinery, water supply, rail tracks, bridges, etc. We need to protect the system. Since no one has a solution that will get rid of SPAM now and immediately, I here by throw out the idea of military special forces in a call to action.

We must defend the system from attack. We must prevent the further melt down and growing distrust in the Virtual World of the Internet, which has and can potentially allow for the the forward progress of mankind into the future period and the next step in our evolutionary process towards a one world peace and unity of the entire species Planet Wide. The Internet is truly one of the greatest gifts of our modern era, we must protect this evolving technology as we would any other infrastructure under attack. This is not funny anymore, this is not a game, the SPAMMERS have raised the stakes and increased SPAM against the will of the people for thier own personal gain, no matter who it hurts. This is unacceptable and they have been alerted, instead of them carefully monitoring themselves and carefully screening email recipients for proper targeting, they blast SPAM the World into an Internet Hell. They have failed to monitor and respect the wishes of all those who have found value in this new communication process which has done so much to unite the World. By Spammers continuing this attack on our country and societies of the World they are bringing the best communication system in the history of mankind to it’s knees. This must be taken care of.

Of course this is my personal opinion as it is the many Americans who are frustrated, running readline against the clock, wallowing in consumer debt, scared about the future and now this complication of SPAM must be stopped. We need to pull out all the stops and stop tip-toe-ing and looking for the laws to help us, it is time for action. We passed the CAN-SPAM act, and the Spammers have instead stuck their middle fingers up and raised the stakes in this bluff game of hide and seek and catch me if you can. Well, we can CAN-SPAM. If we dare to take action. Are we so decadent that we believe that we cannot enforce a law because of another law, even though the whole of our society wants to rid us of this pest we call SPAM, which is actually a federal protected trademark of a food product.

If the FTC admits along with Industry that there is nothing they can do. And the FTC’s conclusion is to let the free market figure it out, which is noble indeed and the rightful conclusion in my opinion, then let’s fix the problem. free enterprise can fix it, but how long? At 54 Billion per year in lost productivity estimated and climbing, we cannot afford to wait any longer, we are at a crisis point. We need this additional bandwidth for miliatry, video cell phones, VoIP and the entertainment industry, for better flash presentation, for better wireless broadband-no digital divide efforts. We need action, no more talk, no more studies, no more games, no more BS.

We now have a 60 page report done by the FTC with references which are all verified, the problem is growing and it is known, it has been found to be an evil attack against the whole of humanity and it must be stopped before it grows worse. If not we will see video ads pop-onto the next generation of cell phones, PDA wireless devices, more disruptins of our daily lives with computer viruses, privacy invasions and identity theft. Folks in my personal opinion, it is time for a literal war on SPAM.

Declare war on SPAM and the American people will reward itself with added productivity, prosperity, renewed sense of purpose.

Declare a war on SPAM and small businesses will reward the free market with more jobs, purchases and efficiencies.

Declare a war on SPAM and the strength and vision of the future of America will be revived by it’s citizens and stakeholders.

Declare a war on SPAM to alert the world that our communication systems are off limits to International Terrorist Attcks.

If we fail to make a stand here and now, the Internet is doomed in the future and we will see more attacks, viruses, abuses until one day it becomes the main target used to exploit us and serve the will of the enemy. Let’s get smart and get busy, action is needed, no more reports-the FTC report says it all. No more committees, no more talk, action, a call to action. It is time to act, we have observed, oriented, decided and now it is time to act. Action is what we need.

We welcome ideas on this subject, we welcome ideas and solutions to end the unecessary SPAM without limiting our right to communicate amongst our selves or lessen our right to Freedom of the Press or Freedom of Speech. Any ideas suggestions or debates are of interest to us. Although a War on SPAM seems harsh, if we fail to act all the studies, meetings, committees of the last 2 years have been wasted and all we see is a 34% increase in that same period for some much higher.

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

What comes to your mind when you think about your email? Email makes possible almost instant communication with your co-workers without leaving your desk, a quick note to a family member who lives far away, but also has a very annoying downside such as junk mail. Since the introduction of the Internet, email has been one of its primary uses. The fact that it is a fast, cheap and easy means of communication, makes email a great business tool. But there are also a series of threats for employers associated with email usage. Email threats such as confidentiality breaches, legal liability, lost productivity and damage to reputation cost organizations millions of dollars each year.

In the majority of cases, companies are held responsible for all the information transmitted on or from their systems. As a result, inappropriate emails can result in multi-million dollar penalties in addition to other costs. For example, a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) employee unintentionally sent a dirty joke entitled ‘Nuns in Heaven’ to 6,000 journalists and government officials on the agency’s group email list. This employee’s lapse in judgment and electronic mistake resulted in negative publicity and national embarrassment for the FCC. In the US, Chevron settled a case filed by four female employees for $2.2 million. The employees alleged that sexually harassing emails sent through the company’s email system caused a threatening work environment. One of the sexually offensive messages was a joke sheet titled ’25 reasons why beer is better than women’. A company can also be liable if one of its employees sends an email containing a virus.

Confidentiality breaches can be accidental, for instance when an employee selects a wrong contact name in the ‘To:’ field, or intentional, such as the case where an employee uses his corporate email account to send confidential information to one of the company’s competitors. In the latter case, both the employee and the recipient could be charged with trade secret theft. Nonetheless, whether it is by mistake or on purpose, the result of the loss of confidential data is the same.

Lost productivity due to inappropriate use of a firm’s email system is becoming a growing area of concern. A recent survey revealed that 86 per cent of workers used their company email to send and receive personal emails. Given that it has become very hard in our modern world to segregate people’s personal lives outside of the workday, companies struggle to find effective ways of balancing employee freedoms and corporate protection. In addition to personal emails, unwanted spam messages are a significant time waster. Spam and personal abuse of email can also cause a corporation’s email system to waste valuable bandwidth resources. A Gartner Group study held under 13,000 email users found that 90 percent receive spam at least once a week, and almost 50 percent get spammed more than 6 times a week. Personal emails cause network congestion since they are not only unnecessary, but tend to be mailed to a large list of recipients and often include large attachments such as mp3, executable or video files that users do not zip. Adopting an anti-spam system alone has not proven effective to stop spam. The combination of spam- blockers with other methods of spam control technologies such as SIDF, SPF, Bayesian Filters, Blacklists, Whitelists, Anomaly Detection, and Spam Signatures has proven to be much more effective. There are also special organizations such as the AntiSPAMLeague.org that give Internet users the chance to report those individuals and companies that are responsible of spamming. You can become a member for free and learn how to control the spam problem by visiting their website at www.antispamleague.org. For more details on how to deal with spam, read the article ‘How Can I Stop It? - The Challenging Task of Controlling Spam’.

How can a company protect itself from these threats? The first step in securing your organization is to create an email usage policy. Every company needs to establish a policy regarding use of and access to company email systems, and then tell all employees what its policy is. After you have created your email policy you must make sure it is actually implemented. This can be done by providing regular trainings and by monitoring employees’ email using some type of email security software. The email policy should be made available and easily accessible to all employees and should be included in employee handbooks and company intranets. It is best to include the email policy, or a short statement regarding the policy, in employment contracts. In this way the employee must acknowledge in writing that he/she is aware of the email policy and of the obligation to adhere to it.

What are some of the benefits of having a clear and effective email policy? First, it helps prevent email threats, since it makes your staff aware of the corporate rules and guidelines. Second, it can help stop any misconduct at an early stage by asking employees to come forward as soon as they receive an offensive email. Keeping the incidents to a minimum can help avoid legal liability. For example, in the case of Morgan Stanley, a US investment bank that faced an employee court case, the court ruled that a single email communication - a racist joke, in this case - cannot create a hostile work environment and dismissed the case against them. Third, if an incident does occur, an email policy can minimize the corporation’s liability for the employee’s actions. Previous cases have proven that the existence of an email policy can prove that the company has taken steps to prevent inappropriate use of the email system and therefore can be freed of liability. Fourth, if you are going to use email filtering software to check the contents of your employee’s emails, you must have an email policy that states this clearly. Some employees may argue that by monitoring their emails, companies are violating their privacy rights. However, court cases have shown that if the employer has warned the employee beforehand that their email might be monitored, the employer has a right to do so. People usually respond better when they know where they stand and what is expected of them.

The recent spike in the volume of spam traveling across the Internet, combined with the dangers of phishing and virus attacks that frequently accompany these messages, has forced corporations to reconsider how they determine which messages will be allowed into their network. For years, companies have addressed their email security needs through a mixture of third party software solutions designed to address specific areas of vulnerability. Today, however, this approach appears to be ineffective. New threats adapt to even the latest security technology, helping hackers and spammers stay a step ahead of most stand-alone protective measures. System administrators remain in a reactionary mode, waiting for the next attack and hoping their mixed bag of security software is up to the test.

The role of email in Sarbanes-Oxley compliance cannot be overstated. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and associated rules adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) require certain businesses to report on the effectiveness of their internal controls over financial reporting. Effective internal controls ensure information integrity by mandating the confidentiality, privacy, availability, controlled access, monitoring and reporting of corporate or customer financial information. Companies that must comply with Sarbanes-Oxley include U.S. public companies, foreign filers in U.S. markets and privately held companies with public debt. U.S. companies with market cap greater than $75M and on an accelerated (2004) filing deadline are required to comply for fiscal years ending on or after Nov. 15, 2004. All others are required to comply for fiscal years ending on or after April 15, 2005.

Because the bulk of information in most corporations is created, stored, transmitted and maintained electronically, IT departments are responsible for ensuring that sound practices, including corporate wide information security policies and enforced implementation of those policies, are in place for employees at all levels. Information security policies should govern the following items:

Most of us would agree that today email is the primary internal and external communication tool for corporations. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most exposed areas of a technology infrastructure. Email systems are critical to ensuring effective internal control over financial reporting, encryption of external messages and active policy enforcement, all essential elements of compliance. Companies must install a solution that actively enforces policy, stops offending mail both inbound and outbound and halts threats before internal controls are compromised, as opposed to passively noting violations as they occur. An effective email security solution must address all aspects of controlling access to electronically stored company financial information. Given the wide functionality of email, ensuring appropriate information access control for all of these points requires:

On a final note, some clear guidelines for a good and effective email policy include the following points: a) Emails should comply with the proper RFC protocols for email, 2) Employees should not attempt to obscure content or messages in emails, 3) Companies should post privacy policies where they can be read and understood, prior to submission of a request, 4) Employees should not send email to unverified or nonexistent email addresses, 5) Companies should offer users opportunities to opt-out of programs.

Given that developments in email and the Internet are changing so rapidly, it is essential to review the email policy at least once every quarter. Keep an eye on new developments in email and Internet law so that you are aware of any new regulations and opportunities. When you release new updates, it is preferable to have each user sign as acknowledgment of their receipt of the policy.

With all of this said, if you want to reduce electronic risks in the workplace you must take the initiative. Electronic disasters can ruin businesses, sink careers, send stock prices plummeting, and generate public relations nightmares. Do not wait for a disaster to strike; prevention is always your best defense. Visit www.AntiSpamLeague.org and they will help you develop and implement written email usage and privacy policies that clearly reflect your organization’s expected standards of electronic behavior, along with privacy and monitoring policies.

About The Author

The purpose of the Anti SPAM League is to help consumers and business owners reduce the amount of SPAM they receive. In addition, our Anti SPAM organization believes that educating site owners in the area of SPAM prevention and ways to successfully and responsibly market their sites, is key in making a difference.

mike@anti-spam-league.org

The Vandals are coming! And this time they’re after your wallets.

It’s a new form of insidious spam and like its inbred email cousin, it’s staggeringly stupid.

People are vandalizing "Wikis" in an attempt to get free advertising for their business.

First, what’s a wiki?

If you’re not familiar with this little web phenomenon, you should immediately dig in and learn. "Wiki" (pronounced "wee kee") is Hawaiian for "quick." And quick it is. The word is used on the web for a page that *anyone* can edit.

When I first heard of this concept I immediately thought "there is no way it will work - it will be utter chaos" but the mass proliferation of wikis and their clear success have proven me wrong.

The medium lends itself to some amazing ideas. For example, the "wikipedia" project is an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It’s surprisingly accurate and useful.

Alas, as with all great things on the Internet, there are forces out there ready and willing to muck it up for everyone.

A "wiki vandal" is someone who goes to a wiki and posts erroneous information. Sometimes this is for fun (like posting your boss’s phone number and sexual habits under a wiki entry about "bondage" - hehe), sometimes it’s for damage (like totally erasing an entry just because you are bitter about life), and sometimes it’s for advertising (like editing an entry with links to your bazillion dollar business "op*ortunity").

Luckily, there are people out there watching the wikis who will change erroneous information quickly. However, sometimes the vandalism is hard to catch and it sticks.

Now, if the wiki vandals were smart, they’d create a relevant encyclopedia entry about themselves and link to it from other wiki entries.

Do it relevantly and intelligently enough and it may just stick and bring you some appropriate attention.

But, of course, we’re talking about spammers here, and there is already an encyclopedia entry for "Down’s Syndrome."

Copyright 2004 Val Halla

About The Author

Val Halla researches Internet Marketing Oddities. You can be alerted when she discovers something odd enough and important enough to merit your attention when you visit her site: http://www.webgodessvalhalla.com. She may be reached at: webgoddessvalhalla@yahoo.com

You must be one of them experiencing a lot of unwanted emails flooding into your mail box every day. It is annoying, and a "daily" problem for many.

How do the spammers find your email? They can find your email address either in the text of a web page or in a mailto link. The spammers enjoy harvesting the emails and ultimately those emails are spammed with junk mails.

I came to know about some simple methods to protect our email IDs from spammers, which I hope may be of some help to you too.

1. While leaving your email address on the web page or on a text message or on a discussion board, write like this - username @ domainname. com (Please note the space in between). Then during the harvesting process it won’t work easily.

2. Write your email like this - username (at the) domainname.com or net, or edu, whatever it may be.

3. Use a web form. Those who genuinely want to contact you will fill the form with their details and get in touch with you. So you know who is contacting you.

4. Never reply to a spam email. Many advise that replying to a spam email confirms your email address to the spammer.

5. While leaving your email address for filling up a form to get more information please check with their privacy policy, to ensure that they won’t misuse your email for any other purpose, other than the one you’ve requested.

6. Make use of your email provider’s filtering facility to reduce spam.

Lakshmi Menon is an internet marketer and her website is http://www.net4homeincome.com

With SPAM being such a problem it might seem the right thing to do is never give anyone your email address. As a strategy that’s not bad but it misses one rather important point; the purpose of having an email address is to be able to exchange emails, both with friends and also as a means to receive eZines from online forums and information sites. In theory any one of these sources could share your email address with a spammer (perhaps by listing it on a public site) and before you know it your email box is full of emails you don’t want and can’t stop… note, we do not do this, your address is safe with us.

Therefore what you need would seem to be a list of separate email addresses, all of which are yours, that you allocate out to the different email lists and online forums you have. That way if one of the addresses gets picked up by the spammers you can just drop and block that one address (and perhaps the list it was subscribed to) and continue in your low or no-SPAM world.

So how do we do this?

What we’re going to do is use one "real" email account (ideally with a hard to guess name) and then a set of forwarded email addresses, all of which are different, but all point back to the real email address. Typically your ISP (Internet Service Provider) provides a small number of email-boxes for you (normally called "POP3" mailboxes). Choose one of these to be your "real" email address and point your email client to it (follow the instruction in your email client such as Outlook Express and ISP to do this). Then we need to register a domain name which will allow us to have lots of forwarded email addresses. 123-Reg.com are an example of a company that provides an inexpensive high-quality service to do this, so we’ll use them as an example. Create an account, it’s free to do this, and give them your real email address. Then you should register a domain name with them; obviously you need to think of a domain name which you would like as part of your "public face." Choosing a name you like can take a little thought, but don’t take too long, domain names are being registered at the rate of one every two seconds, so get in to secure yours as soon as you can! The cost is very low, with .uk domains at around UK£3 / US$5 per year and .com/.net around UK£9 / US$15 per year (note, you should register for at least two years). Using the email forwarding option from the 123-reg.com control panel, set the catch-all address as your real email address. Then any emails sent to any name at your domain will be forwarded on to you automatically.

Here’s a worked example for Brenda Wyatt.

• Brenda’s ISP supplied POP3 email address is brenda@myisp.com
• She creates an account at 123-reg.com and registers the domain "WyattMail.net"
• She sets up email forwarding via the 123-reg control panel to forward all emails received to @wyattmail.net to brenda@myisp.com.

Now when Brenda signs up to a forum or email list she gives an email address which is individual to that list. Let’s say she registers with Amazon, she could register as ‘Amazon@wyattemail.net’. They will send emails to that address which will be forwarded to her brenda@myisp.com email address and she can read them as she wishes.

The nice thing about this system is that Brenda hasn’t had to go anywhere else to register the email address ‘Amazon@wyattemail.net’, 123-reg just sees the wyattemail.net part and sends it on for her.

So what happens if she finds one of her email addresses is being targeted by spammers? Let’s assume this happens to her "dodgylist@wyattemail.net" email address. She then goes to 123-reg.com, logs in and goes to the control panel. She selects the email forwarding page, adds a fresh line with ‘dodgylist@wyattemail.net’ in it, clicks the ‘return to sender’ checkbox and clicks ‘update’. Now any email to this address will be returned to whence it came. Nice, eh?

©2005 Paul Quirk & Mark Quirk. Article taken from CareOfWindowsXP.com.

Paul Quirk & Mark Quirk are both IT professionals with a combined 35 years of experience in the IT industry. Find out more about keeping your computer under your control at http://www.CareOfWindowsXP.com.

A Privacy Policy can be defined as the policy under which a company or organization operating a web site handles the personal information collected about visitors to the site. For most of us consumers, privacy involves protecting our integrity and our right to disclose or not our personal information to third parties, without letting anybody bother us with unsolicited communications if we do not want to be contacted.

Why has privacy become such a big deal for consumers over the last few years? The answer is that customers need reassurance before giving out their personal information to someone they do not know. They might really like your web site and even visit it often, but as soon as you ask for their name, they get suspicious. Moreover, if you also ask for their address, phone number, credit card number, bank names, account numbers, health history, or current job information, they start worrying about what you are going to do with all that information. Can you blame them? Of course you cannot. What you have to do is ensure you address some basic but critical aspects of their concern, through a clear and efficient Privacy Policy.

Below are some important issues you should take into consideration when writing your company’s Privacy Policy:

1) Explain what types of information you collect and how you use it

Provide reassurance. Clearly explain what types of information you ask from your visitors for and what you are going to do with such information. Besides personal information, what other information do you keep track of? Do you collect information from children? How do you verify parental consent for information about their children? Remember that information is power and although about two thirds of Internet users might be willing to accept a guarantee that you will not abuse their privacy, the other quarter feels extremely nervous about the way their personal information might be used. Therefore, if your web site mines raw transaction data to identify visitors, to come up with new offers, or to sell their names to merchandisers, you will need to explain how you share that information within your own family of companies and outside, or else you will very likely face serious legal problems.

2) Explain why your server and online operations are secure

Now you have already told people what information you ask for and what you do with it, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Next you will have to explain what makes your server and online operations secure. You probably do not want to be caught with no answer when confronted with questions such as, ‘How do you make sure nobody steals my credit card information?’ or ‘How do you protect the privacy of my emails to your customer support team?’ Point out how your consumers can tell if they are really on a secure server, i.e. the change in the URL, the icons that show up on the status bar, etc. You may even take a shot at explaining encryption, and the Secure Sockets Layer. Most importantly, concentrate on the benefits to the consumer, for in the end, most of them will not care less about all the security measures you take and all the money you spend to make your website secure, unless that translates into some specific benefits to them.

3) Let customers out

When people read your Privacy Policy for the first time, they will want to know how they can start or stop receiving email from you. Giving customers an opt-in and opt-out option is a great way to build trust and lower their personal barriers. However, you must be aware that people’s needs, desires and interests might change over time and despite the fact that no one likes to lose a customer, you must let them go if they state that they are no longer interested in receiving your emails. In order to protect your customers’ privacy, you must give them access to their personal profile or account, and let them delete themselves. Since one of the biggest invasions of privacy is spam, one of the organizations created to fight spam called The Anti SPAM League considers that it is a good idea to allow people to opt into your e-mail newsletter twice - once by clicking the checkbox and Submit button, and again by responding to the e-mail notification that they can subscribe if they reply -. Double opt-in makes it more likely that people know what they are doing when they volunteer for the email. Remember to include an ‘unsubscribe’ option at the bottom of each newsletter you email to your customer base. Of course, if most of your customers request to be removed from your mailing list then you will have a much more serious problem because your business will be in danger. But still, you must always give your customers a way out.

4) Let customers view and edit their personal information

If you give people the opportunity to view and edit their information, chances are they will provide even more. The reasoning under this is pretty basic: almost no one destroys his or her own data. Therefore, whenever you display customers’ personal information, place clear and visible labels indicating how they can edit it. Be clear about how they can view and edit their information, i.e. ‘You can access all your personally identifiable information that we collect online by logging in and clicking the ‘Change User Info’ link in the box on the right-hand side of every page’. Also, answer questions that might be of extreme importance to some customers such as, ‘Can I review information you have about my child?’.

5) Inform customers about policy changes

Most businesses revise their Privacy Policies from time to time. If you are among these businesses, inform your customers how they can have access to those changes and revisions. For example, include a sentence in your Privacy Policy such as, ‘New versions will be posted on this web site, so please check back periodically for updates’.

6) Tell your customers who to contact in case they have questions about privacy

Sometimes people might have some specific questions that are not explicitly covered in your Privacy Policy. For example, where they can learn more about their right to privacy or who they can talk to if they have a question about their privacy. Always include one or more ways in which customers can contact you regarding privacy issues. This contributes a lot in terms of reassurance.

7) Write a privacy policy that people can understand

Last, but not least, this issue can make the whole difference between a trusted business and one that may look OK, but deep inside you feel you cannot trust. Unfortunately, most Privacy Policies are written by lawyers and consequently, contain way too many technicalities. We do not question the value of legal terminology, but we greatly emphasize the fact that a Privacy Policy does not need to sound too serious or elegant. It just needs to be clear and simple, so that any average consumer can understand it without much effort. If you use industry or in-house jargon without explanation you make readers suspect that you are trying to pull the wool over their eyes and the final result debilitates the whole purpose of the policy, which is to build trust. Sure you will have to talk about your security precautions, but refer to them in plain English before you mention tech words that most people do not understand.

Our advice regarding how to write an efficient Privacy Policy can be summed up in just two sentences: ‘Keep it simple’, and ‘Do not lie to your customers’. If you want to learn more about this and other related topics, check out www.Anti-Spam-League.org. This organization offers free membership and the chance to access a wide amount of relevant information on privacy, spam, email abuse, Internet fraud, responsible marketing and several other topics.

About The Author

The purpose of the Anti SPAM League is to help consumers and business owners reduce the amount of SPAM they receive. In addition, our Anti SPAM organization believes that educating site owners in the area of SPAM prevention and ways to successfully and responsibly market their sites, is key in making a difference.

mike@anti-spam-league.org

Spam filter is the solution that most people resort when they try to steam the flood of junk mails and spam.

However, there is a problem!

First: Some spam will still get through.
Second: Some legitimate mails will be stopped as spam.

And that legitimate messages get caught in the spam filters is a big problem. It is a big problem for both the sender and for the receiver. If you use POP accounts on your ISP or use free email accounts like Hotmail you will sometimes be forced to use their spam filters. You are often not even told that legitimate messages may be deleted.

Why will they get stopped?
There are several reasons!

Spam filters may give red flag to an email simply because it contains words which the filters also find in spam messages.

Often newsletters you sign up to get blocked because too many messages are sent out at the same time or some subscriber have complained accusing the sender of spamming. The rules of the spam filters changes over time as this is an ever going arms race between the spammers and the anti spam filter manufacturer.

So how can you stop the flood of spam hitting your email account?

Simple, you have to go stealth!

Look at email spamming as a war.

Using spam filters is like putting on armor. It gives you protection, but it will also cost you and give you less flexibility.

The spam sending gangs, there are estimated to be fewer than hundred worldwide, machine gun bombard only email accounts which they can find.
This means that if they can’t find your email address they can’t spam you.

So how do they find you?
Contrary to popular beliefs they don’t find your email address because you sign up to a newsletter or to legal product information.

Instead they collect or harvest email from web sites using spam boots. The spam boots works in a similar way as web content collecting search engine spiders except they only collect email addresses. They also collect email address from address books found inside email software like Outlook or Eudora. They do this by using viruses and spywares.

Your solution to avoid getting on their lists is to go stealth and become invisible to the spammers!
What do I mean by that?
Simple you hide your email address or addresses from the email harvesting spam boots. But at the same time if you have your own web site you want your viewers to be able to read or click on your contact email.

One common solution is to rewrite the email address on the web site.
Let’s say you email is: info@mysite.com
You can rewrite the address as info@REMOVEmysite.com, info @ mysite.com, infoATmysite.com or something similar. The email address is then readable by human viewers, not by the spammers. The downside of this method is that the email address is not clickable from your web site.

Another method which is preferred by commercial web sites is to use a contact form that also hides the address from the spammers.

One solution which I use and have found to work well is to hide the address from the spam boots with java script. The address then becomes clickable for the viewers. You can learn how to use java script and hide your email addresses from the spammers at http://www.data-backup-and-storage.com/stop-spam.html

You should also use firewall and anti virus software as a protection so that spammers don’t get access to the email addresses from within your computer. As an extra precaution you should also use spyware removal software. This will remove possible spyware from your computer. All this measures should protect you from spammers and their spying eyes.

However, be careful! With this method in order to work you should adopt a strict email discipline and limit the number of people with access to your email addresses and not spread them around.

But, what if your emails already have been spread into the spammers mailing lists?

It is important to understand that the spammers want new and fresh email addresses.
Therefore they continuously harvest the Internet for addresses.

The answer is, use Google!
With Google you will find the web pages on which your email addresses are located. Just perform consecutive searches using Google typing in one of your email address in the search box.

You can then contact the owners of those sites and ask them to remove the email address.

Result:
The spam will not stop immediately, but after a couple of months the flow will start to recede.

Copyright 2004 Per Strandberg

About The Author

Per Strandberg works with computer security and he also manage an information site dealing with data backup technology. Learn working data backup strategies at ==> http://www.data-backup-and-storage.com/computer-backup.html

Discover different ways to get rid of spam at ==> http://www.data-backup-and-storage.com/stop-spam.html

I imagine you have seen, heard about, or already know what spam is. But just in case you don’t, it is unsolicited and unwanted emails that arrive in your email inbox from a person or company that you don’t know.

What you might not know, however, is that now there is a law in the USA designed to protect you from specific types of spam – yes, there is more than one type of spam — the variety and methods used are shocking.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has created a law called The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 to pursue, fine, and prosecute blatant and persistent “spammers”.

Furthermore, the Department of Justice (DOJ) works actively to shutdown or fine offending web sites or emailers by enforcing this relatively new anti-spam law.

Unfortunately, the sheer volume and different types of spam require … …you, the reader, to have available in your hands, a proven solution for defending yourself and your computer from the onslaught of spam email. You might be asking yourself: But, Gary, how can I defend myself when there is so much spam everyday?”

Well, I’m glad you asked.

The solution that I am talking about is new, really works, and is called …

…Internet Self Defense: How to Protect Yourself While On The Internet.

This well-written and information-filled handbook provides no nonsense solutions that you can implement immediately to solve not only problems with spam but also problems that concern …

…“Phishing” Scams,

…Online Transaction Security,

…Spam,

…Doing Business Online,

…“Spyware”,

…Security Products, and

…Internet Fraud.

Plus this book shows “real” examples of the

…Department Of Justice Response, and “how to”

…File Complaints.

If you want to quickly and permanently stop these “Internet Bad Guys”, then you need to get your personal copy of this unique handbook at an incredibly low introductory price – but only for a limited time. Get not only yourself a copy, but also a copy for those that you care about, as … …an excellent gift for –

Christmas 2004

New Year’s Day 2005
Valentine’s Day 2005
A Loved One’s Birthday, Now or in 2005
Mother’s Day 2005
Father’s Day 2005
Easter 2005

But remember, don’t wait, this price is introductory, so can get this great book now while the “price is right”. Okay?

Enough said.

I would also like to invite you to subscribe “directly” to my newsletter, Dollarsforever Ezine at Subscribe

Dollarsforever ezine is designed to increase your financial literacy with respect to earning, saving, and investing your hard-earned money. It is my hope that you will enjoy and use the practical information contained in each month’s ezine. Finally, these ezines are kept as concise as possible out of respect for your busy lifestyle.

By Gary E. Cain
Author & Publisher
www.dollarsforever.com

About The Author

© 2004 Dollarsforever.com — All rights reserved worldwide

Gary Cain is a business teacher and Internet marketer. He is the author of Stop the Grammar! as well as Internet Self Defense the only internet book of its kind designed to help fight spam, fraud, information theft, and clone web sites.

Both of these books can be found at … http://www.dollarsforever.com.

Subscribe to Gary’s straight forward, easy-to-understand Dollarsforever Ezine about financial literacy, saving, investing, and earning money.

***Webmasters: You may post this information on your web site, but you must keep this “ownership” box and the information contained herein unchanged.

garyecain@yahoo.com.br